Fairytale Gone Wrong
by Zayz
Summary: LJ. To Lily Evans, the perfect fairytale has opened up for her friend Anne and enemy James Potter & all they need is the right matchmaker. However, what Lily doesn't know is that real life fairytales don't always have normal, conventional happy endings.
1. Of Homework and James Potter

**A/N: I watched two romantic movies today, Enchanted and Two Weeks Notice (both excellent, by the way) and just when I was about to go to bed, I got this idea spawned from the thoughts I had from both of them. I knew I simply ****had**** to write it, so instead of sleeping like I should have, I fed myself some chocolate to wake me up and began this story, knowing it was a loose idea that would go away if I didn't chase it. So I do hope you like it; be sure to review!**

_**Title: **_Fairytale Gone Wrong**  
**_**As Told By: **_Lily Evans**  
**_**Year: **_6  
_**Rating: **_T for language**  
**_**Summary: **_In Lily Evans's eyes, it was absolutely perfect – her former enemy James Potter and her best friend Anneliese Weathers would be the perfect couple, if they wanted to be. All they needed was the right matchmaker and it would all work out to be the fairytale people only dreamed they could have. So, with the very purest of intentions, Lily unwittingly starts trying to find that fairytale, but what she ends up discovering isn't exactly what her idea of a happy ending was.

* * *

"LILY! You're falling asleep _again_; can't you bloody _wake up_?"

I feel a whack on my arm and that, coupled with the shouted command in my ear, gets me out of my stupor immediately, and I open my exhausted eyelids to see my aggravated best friend glaring me down for the fourth time tonight. I yawn and try to regain control over my fatigue, like I should, and say, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm still awake."

"Yes, of course you are; _everybody_ works with their eyes closed, right, Lil?" Anneliese Weathers says to me, her tone dripping in sarcasm.

I swear, that girl has no patience whatsoever to speak of.

"I'm sorry," I repeat with a second yawn. "I'm just tired, all right?"

"I'm sorry too," Anne says, yawning with me. "I get cranky when I'm sleepy."

"I can see that," I mutter, rubbing my eyes. "Where are we at now?"

Currently, Anne and I are in the Gryffindor common room at two in the morning, trying to finish Anne's homework for Muggle Studies, the one class I don't have with her, owing to my being Muggle-born and more interested in the Ancient Runes. She has to recreate a model of a telephone as well as explain exactly how it works using a diagram even I can barely comprehend. Unfortunately for the two of us, Anne is absolutely hopeless at understanding any kind of Muggle contraption, which means that I, being official Best Friend, am supposed to brave the year through with her and help her to the best of my abilities with her homework. This includes staying up about five nights a week and not being able to complain too much about how heavy-eyed I am.

Trust me – much easier said than done.

I look at Anne's pathetic attempt at a telephone model with a mix of frustration and a strong desire to go to bed and ask, "Why did you even take this bloody subject? You hate it."

"I thought it would be easy," Anne explains grumpily, crumpling up a piece of scrap parchment and chucking it across the room. "It seemed to be the easiest subject on the list; apparently it's not."

I roll my eyes. "You and your laziness. You're exactly like James that way."

"Eww, stop insulting my humanity," Anne complains. "James can be such a slob."

"But you find it rather cute," I say, grinning.

"Maybe I do," Anne says, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. "What's wrong with that?"

"Don't be defensive," I say with a laugh. However, when this laugh turns into a yawn halfway through, I say hastily, "Let's just finish this. I think I'm going loopy from sleep deprivation."

"If you think I'm like James, then yes, you are," she agrees, touching up the receiver of her phone. "Did I do this right?"

I peer at it. "Yes, you did. Now, do you know how the thing works?"

"I think so," she says. "Read over my essay and make sure I did it right, would you, doll?"

"All right, all right," I say. "But for all the work I did for you on this project, I probably should put my name on it along with yours and take some credit."

"Professor Bruin would hate that," Anne points out. "He already despises me; if I can't even do his retarded 'easy' assignments on my own, he'd hate me even more, and we all know what a tragedy _that_ would be."

I snicker; Professor Bruin is a very old-fashioned teacher, meaning he likes to have everyone respect him and urges his students to get perfect scores on everything because they have the potential to. Anne really hasn't been in his good books lately, seeing as she has lost almost all will to try at all, let alone try hard, and has grown to resent him more than before as a result. He is often the subject of ridicule in regular conversation, and is Anne's favorite teacher because he is so easy to make fun of. I used to object to berating him at every possible second, but now I don't even bother; even if it's harsh and judgmental, Anne's usually spot-on with what she says about him.

"Will you give me the bloody essay now please?" I request irritably after a few moments; I can almost hear my bed calling out to me, I'm so tired.

"I am, I am, keep your socks on," Anne snaps back at me, scratching out a few lines and handing the finished product to me. "Voila."

I take the paper from her and skim over it, looking for grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors rather than correctness of content – that last is Anne's responsibility, not mine. I don't see any, so I give it back to her and say, "It's pretty good."

"Do you think I'll pass?"

I consider. "Do you want my honest answer or what you want to hear?"

"What I want to hear, if you don't mind," Anne says. "I might cry if I have to do any more for this damn thing."

I smile as convincingly as is humanly possible. "You'll do lovely and he'll keep yours as an example for future Hogwarts students that have the bad luck – er, _fortune_ – to be in his class in later years."

Anne smirks at me, but is appreciative of my lie nonetheless. "Thank you; that is _exactly_ what I wanted to hear."

"Lovely." I give out yet another yawn and say, "Can you tell _me_ what _I_ want to hear and say that I can go to bed?"

"Okay," Anne sighs dramatically. "_Fine_, Lily. Just leave your poor best friend here for the rest of the night, struggling away to obtain knowledge you already have acquired, and obey your selfish impulses when they want you to do something as trivial and bothersome as _sleep_."

This is obviously a signal for me to stay, so I sigh as well and moan, "Annie, I'm so _tired_."

"You're sixteen years old, Lily," she reprimands me. "I'm nearly done, stop being a baby."

I roll my eyes, but otherwise ignore her slight and say, "Thank goodness."

Anne pushed her project out towards me proudly. "Admire it," she orders. "Drool over it. Envision me getting a passing grade on it."

"Admiring," I say, bored. "Drooling. Envisioning. _Please_ can I go to bed? I'll get on my knees if that'll help."

I win a highly aggravated look from Anne when I say that. "Oh all right then," she gives in reluctantly. "Go to bed; I'll join you in a bit."

I hug her tightly, relieved. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, _thank you_!"

"This is the most affection I've gotten from you all day," Anne mumbles.

I choose not to answer that and drag myself up the dormitory stairs, delirious with gratification for my long-deserved break. I love Anne dearly, but she can be extremely unsympathetic to my nerves sometimes, which is, of course, not always a good thing.

Too sleepy to change into proper pajamas, I allow myself to fall onto my bed, too done in to move, and before I have time to think too much about it, I feel myself slipping away into the safe blackness of much-needed sleep.

**&&&**

I'm not sure if it's morning or not when I wake up after what seems to be only a few minutes. All I know is that it's loud enough to be morning and I am still supremely tired, despite what little sleep I was treated to during the course of my nap.

"LILY! Wake up!" I hear Anne screech in my ear.

"Why?" I groan. "I just fell asleep."

"You've got about fifteen minutes to get to first period because you overslept," Anne announces. "That's why you should wake up now."

I pop right up, awake at once. "What?! Why didn't you wake me earlier, since you had time to get ready?!"

"You were tired," Anne says harmlessly. "You helped me so much yesterday that I wanted to give you as much time as I could to catch up on your sleep."

"Anne, sweetie, that was really nice of you, but now I'm going to be bloody _late_ to Transfiguration," I fret, leaping out of my bed and rampaging to my bathroom to brush my teeth.

Anne shrugs, something mischievous in her expression somehow, and says, "Oh well. I was probably going to ditch class anyway."

I whip around to face her, horrified. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, why not?" Anne is unable to see why I care so much, but _I_ can't see why _she_ doesn't care at all. "I don't feel like going. I get an extra day to work on that horrible project too, don't I?"

"You're coming to class, Anneliese Weathers," I inform her, my tone muffled as I speed-spit toothpaste suds into my sink. "That's final."

"What are you, my mum?" Anne wrinkles her nose. "Please, Lily; one of her is more than enough."

I snigger; it's a well-publicized fact that Anne absolutely loathes her stepmother. Her real mother divorced her father last summer, and her father was so desperate to find another woman that he picked the first one that entered his life; it was just a matter of chance that she was, as Anne told me constantly, a major bitch.

"No, Anne, I'm not your mother, and I don't want to be," I say. "I'm just telling you that you're coming to class because if you don't, I'll be stuck to deal with James Potter all by myself, and I won't like that."

"Why are you still worried?" Anne asks me, watching interestedly as I slip into the first outfit I can find and throw my hair back into a sloppy ponytail. "I mean, after you kind of shouted at him at the end of the year in June, he's been good about leaving you alone."

I sigh; I hate having to remember the cruel words I'd said to him that day by the Black Lake. James hadn't expressed much concern over the matter, but once we came back after the break at the start of this year, it was evident that he'd done a lot of rethinking and recalculating. He had become a lot quieter, and didn't ask me out as often as he had before. Actually, he didn't ask me out at all; he went on a few dates here and there with other girls, but mostly remained single for this year. I've been pretty surprised by him, to be honest; it's March, so we're well into our last stretch of school, and James Potter doesn't have a steady girlfriend. Still, despite all of these facts, I don't like to be in the same room with him more than I have to be – there's just so much awkwardness between us now, and whenever I'm in his presence, I always feel scrutinized under his frequently intense stares, which is quite uncomfortable. Anne, of course, is unaware of the tender thoughts that go through my head when I think about that summer's day gone wrong, and shows every sign of wanting to plow on in her case anyway, so I continue on as well.

"I suppose he's been good, but do you really want to leave me, your Muggle Studies savior, alone with a guy she doesn't like?" I ask, trying to sound innocent.

She smiles at me and shakes her head. "You totally like him, Lily; it's such a love story for the two of you."

I roll my eyes; we've been through this before, but I don't have the time to pursue it as readily as I usually do. I grab her wrist and scurry off to the Transfiguration room with Anne bumping along behind me, talking at top speed as I go – "I'm not in love with James! He is just another guy, a guy I don't even like. I know you remember every word I told him last year when I yelled at him, and each of them was true to my thoughts about him; I don't care about him! I really don't! He's an egotistical jerk incapable of thinking of anyone besides himself."

"Yes, well, he's been a lot better about that nowadays," Anne says fairly. "I mean, he and Sirius Black don't hex people as much as they did before – you can't tell me you haven't noticed that. James saves his joking around and arrogance for the Quidditch field only, where he really needs it, and he has stopped asking you out. He's grown up a little, like you had wanted him to, and I think you should give him the chance he has now earned."

"Yuck," I say, looking at her with distaste as I turn a corner. "Why do you stand up for him anyway, Anne? Every time I want to say something against him, you always try to redeem him."

"It's only fair," she says, trying in vain to slow me down in my quest to get to class on time. "He doesn't deserve _all_ the bitchiness – ahem, criticism – you give him all the time."

I do not slow down at all out of pure fury this time; I say, "He does deserve it, and you know it. If I didn't know any better, Annie, I'd say you liked him yourself."

"I don't particularly like him because he's a bloody idiot, but he's pretty funny, and probably the cutest guy in our year," Anne says reasonably.

I put forth my biggest effort at not appearing too revolted at this point in our chat. "Funny? Cute? In all the years I've known you, I've never heard you refer to _any_ boy that way; except in first year, when you liked Sirius."

Anne grimaces. "Please, let's not bring back the dirty details of my early, naïve crushes; those are ancient history now, mercifully. And I don't like James – I find him acceptable, but he's made for you, not me."

"Yes, yes, of course he is," I say impatiently, waving aside the part that has to do with me. "I really do think you are in love with him, Anne, to _some_ degree."

"And I really think you've definitely got a few pages glued together for sure if you truthfully think that way," Anne tells me right away as we topple into the classroom with just seconds to spare before the bell.

I'm about to counter her with something else, but I can't, since we are in front of our Transfiguration class, I look horrible in my messy state, and both of us need to sit down. Embarrassed out of my mind, I take my seat in the back of the room with Anne just as the bell rings, and Professor McGonagall starts the day by requesting for us to send our homework up to the front of the room. I take mine out of my bag and pass it up, but Anne curses next to me and starts searching her bag for her own homework.

"I could swear I did this last night," she howls. "Where did it go?"

"I think that you were planning on doing it this morning, but you probably forgot," I say wisely.

"Oh yeah, I was." Anne whimpers. "Damn! What should I do?"

"Turn it in tomorrow?" I suggest.

"Good plan," she says, putting away her bag.

I shrug and pull out some parchment and my quill to take a few notes, while Anne plays with the feather on her own quill, not ready to take notes at all. On any other day, I would have tried to make her focus, but today, I decide not to – it's really no use, because when it comes to weaseling out of any notes, Anne is the master. Professor McGonagall clears her throat to begin the lesson, and everyone in the class except for me settles in to fall asleep, while I become the only person actually paying her any attention; it's a very typical Tuesday.

**&&&**

Once out of Transfiguration, Anne yawns and stretches out her arms. "That was a nice nap," she remarks as we walk down the corridor, me to Ancient Runes, her to Muggle Studies. "I think I'll take another when I get to Professor Bruin."

"See, this is why you never understand things, Annie," I say. "You need to _not_ sleep in class and actually _listen_ to what your teacher says."

"Why?" she asks perplexedly. "It's pointless."

I sigh. "When will you finally take responsibility for your learning and do what you're supposed to do? You have N. E. W. T.'s next year, and you need to get all the knowledge you can now so that you won't have to study as hard later."

"I probably should listen to you and do what you're saying," Anne tells me contemplatively. "But then again, I'm probably _not_ going to listen to you or do what you're saying, so what's the point in even talking about it?"

"Because you're my friend and I care about your future," I say. "I mean, I know you – you slack off during lessons and the day before the tests, you make me stay up all night with you while you moan, groan, and complain about how you are never going to understand everything by the next morning. I hate doing that."

"You hate doing anything that doesn't involve obsessive learning," Anne says. "You're so _boring_, Lily; live a little."

"I do live," I say, miffed.

"When's the last time you've been out on a date?" Anne asks.

"Erm…" I search my memory as quickly as I can. "Daniel West asked me out in third year and I said yes."

"Study dates don't count," she says. "I'm talking about a _real_ date."

"Well, then I've never had one," I say, blushing deeply.

"Exactly!" Anne throws her arms dramatically out in front of her, nearly hitting a couple of tiny first years as they streaked down the corridor in the opposite way of us. "Lily, this is pathetic! You are sixteen years old, can be drop-dead gorgeous, and choose to waste your life away with homework!"

"I don't like anyone here," I say. "Aren't I supposed to like who I go out with?"

"You don't have to," Anne says. "I didn't like half the guys I dated, but I went out with them anyway."

"Why?"

Anne grins. "Because they were incredibly sexy."

"How deep," I say sarcastically.

"Really, Lily," she goes on. "Ask someone out! Better yet, ask James out. He'll say yes."

"_You _like James; why don't _you_ ask him out?" I fire back at her, frantic to get this conversation away from me.

"Maybe I will," Anne says loudly.

"Why don't you?"

Anne takes a breath and says, "I will ask him out and possibly go out with him once just to show you how easy it is to go out with someone you don't particularly like. Keep a quill and some parchment with you to take some good notes here; you're going to be watching a master at work."

I roll my eyes, but say, "All right, all right. When are you going to do it?"

"Tomorrow morning." Anne and I reach the fork in the hall passage where we must separate. "You'll see."

"Of course," I say, bored. "Bye, Anne."

"Bye, Lily." Anne waves to me as she walks down to Muggle Studies at a leisurely pace, already bored to tears before she even gets there. I, however, make my rate of walking a bit more brisk so to get there with a bit of time to spare – I like the Runes quite a lot; they're fascinating.

I try my hardest to forget about what Anne is going to do tomorrow, but there's just something in me that doesn't want to forget it. I figure that it's because I know Anne does like James deep down, since it's true, and I manage to get through the rest of my morning thinking about everything that's probably going to go wrong in the endeavor.

Keeping this in mind, I think I am definitely going to need to take some notes on how badly asking someone out can really go so that I have reason to never, ever try it out myself.

* * *

**A/N: Well, how was that for a first chapter? I dunno, I have a lot of ideas I want to try out for this little story, so please tell me if you liked the start of it and I will try and get the next chapter up as soon as I can!**


	2. Of Dating and James Potter

**A/N: I was about to plan this fic out this morning, seeing as the reviews I got were positive, but then I decided not to; you don't know what's going to happen next, and until I start writing, I won't either. Spontaneity makes a story interesting, and sometimes more realistic, since life is a spontaneous thing, so I have decided to just go with the flow here. Enjoy the chapter, don't forget to review!

* * *

**

In the morning, I find, to my very great dismay, that my eyes have shaken off sleep absurdly early at six AM when I really just wanted to get a bit more time in dreamland. There has to be something wrong with me, then; I may be an overachiever in the academics of my life, but I'm not able to live without the right amount of rest, and if I wake up too early, there has to be something bothering me. However, today, I'm not so sure what it is.

I sit up in my bed, yawning but unable to go back to sleep, and look crossly around my dormitory. There are only a handful of Gryffindor sixth year girls around me, Anne being one of them, and they are all asleep, those lucky, lucky young ladies. I wish I was too, but I'm not. I sigh and get up – I might as well get ready while I'm wakeful, right? I pad over to the drawer where I stash all of my clothes, pick out a pair of jeans with a navy blouse, and wander off to brush my teeth and do my morning routines. I can take my time today, which is a good thing, but I still would have preferred to sleep for an extra half hour or so instead. I finish dressing and check the time again – seven AM. Wow, an entire hour to get ready; that's a new record for me. I sit on my bed, moody still, and watch Anne sleep. Her slumber is annoying me; I want to be in it. Even though she still has some time, I decide to shake her awake. Her murky, grey-blue eyes open slowly and take a few moments to focus on me until she realizes what's going on.

"What's the time?" she mumbles, struggling to sit up and look properly at me.

"Seven," I say, smiling pleasantly at her.

"Damn you," she says with disgust, falling back on her pillow and pulling her blankets over her head. "Go the hell away."

I suppress a laugh with great difficulty; Anne is particularly foul-mouthed in the morning, especially when woken up early for no specific reason. "Wake up," I request for the second time, continuing to shake her anyway.

"Leave me alone, bitch," Anne orders sleepily.

This time, I don't hold back my giggles, and this makes Anne smack me hard on the thigh before rolling over again. I giggle despite this, take my bag, and leave the room for an early breakfast. I also need to look for James's friend Remus Lupin – he's in my Runes class and I want to ask him about a question on our homework. I figure I'll do that now, since James will most likely not be awake to bother me in any way, shape, or form; so, brightening a little at this prospect, I make my way down to the Great Hall. I carefully look around the room, and sure enough, I see Remus eating breakfast alone at the Gryffindor table – perfect. See, unlike James and I, Remus and I actually get along and are quite good friends now. His being in my Runes class is a contributor to this, but so is his sweet disposition and lack of irritating traits James possesses in such mass quantities. It's a completely platonic relationship, of course, and we don't want it any other way; we put this out in the open at the very beginning, and I have no regrets whatsoever.

I slide down on the bench next to him, startling him, and smile. "Remus," I say warmly. "Good morning."

Remus smiles back at me. "Good morning, Lily."

"I have a question on the Runes homework from last night – could you help me?" I ask him, rummaging through my belongings and showing him my parchment containing the night's translations.

"Yes, of course." He looks over the parchment with interest, but before he can offer me any kind of help, Sirius, Peter, and James conveniently arrive and take their seats around us. Wonderful.

"Good morning, Evans," Sirius greets me cheekily as he digs right into breakfast. "Nothing like an early meal, eh? I'm starved."

"Brilliant," I say flatly, displeased.

"Sorry, Lily," Remus says apologetically. "Can I look over it a bit later then?"

"Evans!" Peter and James say my name at the same time, only just seeing me after their rush to fight Sirius for the plate of sausages.

"All right, Evans?" James asks me, bowing his head playfully.

"I've told you a hundred times – please call me Lily," I say. "Last names just sound so…impersonal."

"You call me Potter all the time," James says, confused.

"Yes, well, yours is like your celebrity identity, and mine isn't," I say. "Potter, Black, and Pettigrew – the three biggest troublemakers Hogwarts has ever seen."

"We're Marauders, if you don't mind," Peter says. "And what about Lupin? He's part of the group too."

"_Remus_," I say, paying deliberate attention to his first name, "is not at all a troublemaker. He just has the misfortune to be friends with some."

"Stop flattering us, Evans," Sirius says, grinning.

"So what brought you over to our neck of the table?" James asks, changing the subject conversationally, studying me watchfully.

"I had to ask Remus about the Runes homework," I tell him, slightly disconcerted by his gaze. "But obviously, I can't now, so I'll just see you later."

"You can still ask him," Peter points out.

"No, I can't," I say shortly. "I'll see you four in Transfiguration."

I leave the table and go back up to the common room to find Anne, attempting with little achievement to calm my stomach down. It always misbehaved when James was around, but it was probably because I was itching to kill him but was too old for silly, immature wishes like that. He has this strange ability to make me so unnecessarily nervous that I can't believe it; I'm not one to be nervous around people. I _like_ people, and I get along well with them normally, which further proves my theory of James not being a teenage boy and really being some other creature, my favorite being an ape. 'Stupid ape,' I think petulantly to myself. 'Always ruining my life…'

I get to the common room, James still bouncing around the corners of my mind, and I see Anne picking up her bag and starting to come out the to portrait hole. When she sees me, she grimaces.

"You woke me up," she accuses.

"Yes, I know," I say contentedly.

"It made me upset," she informs me.

"_Now_ who's being a baby about sleeping?" I ask her jubilantly.

Anne realizes the truth behind my words and hastily changes the subject, like James did not even a few minutes ago, and I go along with it, pleased with my victory over her; it's a rare occasion when I actually win an argument against her. What's on Anne's mind, however, is exactly what's on my own mind – James Potter – and that slightly dampens my triumph.

"So I'm going to ask him out right now," she says. "Do I look all right?"

"Yeah, you look fine," I say. "But why are you so worried about this? Didn't you dislike him?"

"I do dislike him intensely, but no matter who you're asking out, you have to look nice," Anne clarifies for me, blushing an oh-so-tiny amount. "If it's someone you hate, you have to make them rue the day they first started to hate you; if it's someone you like, you have to impress them. Those are the two first basic rules of dating."

"I see," I say, nodding patiently, though I think that the latter of those two rules is the one she's applying right now.

"Yes," Anne says, evidently annoyed by the fact that I don't believe her. "The approach for asking someone out is very, very important as well. Pay close attention when I do it to James, but I'll give you the fundamental outline for what you have to do right now."

"Okay," I say simply.

"Right." Anne clears her throat, trying hard to sound important as we climb out of the portrait hole at last and start walking down the corridor. "So dating – it's definitely one of those essential things in life if you ever want to get married and not become a boring prude who thinks that homework is the most exciting thing in life (I get a very meaningful look at this point). There are three different types of dates – pity dates, dates of desperation, and desired dates."

"Which of those is the date with James?" I ask politely.

"It's not in one of those categories – it's not truly a date," Anne says at once. "It is an educational date. When you ask him out yourself later, it'll be a desired date. Now shut up so that I can finish this lesson."

"Sorry," I mutter.

"Anyway," she continues. "Since there are three different types of dates, there are three different approaches. For a pity date, you are very, _very_ charming." She takes a breath, puts on her most alluring expression, and says to me in a very breathy voice, "Would you like to go out with me?"

I make a face. "No, I'm fine, thank you."

Anne smacks me. "I was demonstrating how to ask someone out on a pity date, Lily, I wasn't asking _you_ out. Even if you were a hot guy I wouldn't ask you out, because you're so damn boring – no offense."

"None taken," I say, though quite a lot was taken anyway.

"The pity date method," Anne goes on as though I hadn't spoken, "is most commonly used by bitches, sluts, and whores. They think they are supreme dating queens of the universe, and so must make their victims feel inferior. With me so far?"

"I think so," I say. This has to be one of the strangest lectures I've ever had to endure, but I'm amused by Anne's exceedingly distorted view of dating, so I let her elaborate.

"Good." Anne grins. "The next method was the date of desperation. For that one, even if you're as desperate as the title suggests, you can't let that show – you have to pretend like it's a desired date."

"How do you do that?" I inquire.

"You have to look extra cute, and then you ask them out casually," Anne says. "It's like a more relaxed version of desired dating; the only real way to tell either of them apart is by reputation – if you're known to be a desperate dater, then every guy you ask out will think you're using the desperation method on him, and he may turn you down. That's why it's good to maintain a social life."

"I see," I say, though I really don't. "And since it ties in with desired dates, how do you ask someone out for one of those?"

"It's the method you see in those pathetic Muggle soaps you sometimes watch," Anne says readily. "You can do anything really – you can be informal, dramatic, loud, obnoxious…anything, really. The key thing is passion; if the passion is there, it's desired. However, that's the tricky thing with desired and desperation – sometimes, you can fake passion or not have it when you really need it. That's when you have to go with your gut and/or social status."

"All right," I say slowly. "So for asking James out today, which method are you going to use?"

"I'm not going to tell you," Anne announces. "I'm going to use one of the three methods we just talked about and you have to identify which it is, so that I know you were paying attention, took this to heart, and will use the knowledge later in life."

"You must be joking," I say, fairly outraged. I'm supposed to be tested on _dating methods_?!

"I'm perfectly serious," Anne says. "You need to grasp these concepts if you ever want to get a boyfriend. Now come with me so that I can find James before he leaves breakfast. Remember – take good mental notes so that we can talk about the dating methods in Transfiguration today."

I sigh. "Fine. Come, master; teach me."

"With pleasure." Anne gives my shoulder a quick squeeze and runs over to the Gryffindor table, where the four Marauders are sitting and conversing with one another. With a confidence and grace that I envy, Anne sits down next to James, a sweet smile on her face, and waits for him to notice her. I take a seat nearby, listening with bated breath.

"Hey Anne," James says sincerely to her.

"Anne!" Sirius throws his arms out like she herself does sometimes, beaming at her. "Hello!"

Anne smirks at him and gives him a middle finger. "I was here to talk to James, not you, moron."

"How pleasant you are," Peter says to her.

"Oh yes," Anne says, her eyes gleaming. "Anyway, James; I wanted to ask you something." She bats her eyelashes, looking utterly flirtatious, and asks, "Would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?"

James's eyebrows are in danger of getting lost in his hairline, while Remus looks up in surprise and Peter and Sirius wolf-whistle/clap/make lots of noise. I put my fist in my mouth to stop myself from bursting into chuckles myself – I can't believe she actually asked him like this!

"Erm…" James is lost for words, and with good reason. Anne doesn't give up though; like a good little flirter, she sits there, waiting with demure eyes now, and leans a little closer to him, watching him consider.

"Please?" she asks, her voice a little more than a teasing whisper. I am quite confused; is she trying to seduce him or ask him out? James is apparently thinking the same way as me, because he scoots ever so slightly away from her before saying, "I suppose."

"Prongs has a date!" Sirius explodes happily. "I'm so proud of you! You haven't had one in ages!"

"Nice one, Potter," Peter compliments him.

"Congratulations?" Like me, Remus is also extremely unsure of how to react, and I feel a wave of warmth in me for him – he's such a lovely boy.

"Excellent." Anne smiles widely and strokes James's nose with the tip of her finger. "Meet me in the Entrance Hall at three on Sunday?"

"Okay," James says, at a loss for words as he gives Anne a highly befuddled glance and moves her finger away. "See you then, Anneliese."

"Call me Anne." She gives him one more flirty smile and then gets off the bench to join me, leaving the Marauders to discuss what the hell just happened. My eyes are wide, unable to think of anything coherent or rational to say, so Anne goes ahead and speaks for me.

"So there was a brilliant, real-life example of asking someone out," she says proudly. "Now what method did I use?"

"Desperation, definitely," I say, nodding.

Anne shoots me a filthy look. "I used desired dating, Lily. How was it desperation?"

"You didn't have to watch yourself, Annie," I say. "You were desperate. I think you like him!"

"I don't," Anne snaps, in a thoroughly bad mood by now since her plan is completely backfiring. "I asked him out using the desired method because you have a problem with recognizing desire when it's dancing right in front of your face! _You_ are the one in love with James!"

"Yes, and that's why, out of all the boys in our year and in our school, you picked James to be the example for desired dating skills," I say, smiling gently. "You're in love with him."

"I'm not!" Her temper darkened all the way at this last, and she stomps off without me to Transfiguration, leaving me to giggle away by myself. I'm okay with it though; I just got what amounted to a full confession of feelings for James Potter, jerk extraordinaire! I congratulate myself for worming it out of her; who knew that just by watching her act like a date-crazy twit, I would get an admission from her?

However, I'm not stupid; I do know that Anne is pretty unsure about this whole loving-James thing. She, while being a serial dater, is not always ready to dive headfirst into a real, long-lasting relationship, seeing as she's never seen it work out before, and I can see that this is one of those times where she's on the verge of making a valid move, but won't. Being her friend, I want nothing but happiness for her, but I don't know how to give it to her, because she won't say, in plain English, that she is in love with him.

As I turn a corner, I conclude that I suppose I'll just have to play matchmaker myself. James and Anne are a great couple – James's confidence can mix well with hers, and they're so alike, they'll just fall into a pattern without trying. Screw whoever says opposites attract and like charges do not; Anne is so much like James, but I know they could work out beautifully. For me, it's like being on the sidelines of a major fairytale, but it's also kind of frustrating to see little hints of what _could_ be, but never seeing a major event take place. Let me say that there is nothing worse than seeing a best friend avoid something that's meant to be; I don't want that to happen to Anne, as I'm sure she wouldn't want that to happen to me, so right here and now, I decide that I'm going to try my damnedest to get those two together because I, unlike everyone else, can already see how this story should end. I'm doing her a favor! She'll thank me for it later, even if she won't thank me at this very moment.

As I get into the room and stride to my seat, I come to a consensus with myself that I will wait and see how the date goes before I do anything else. If the date goes well, I won't need to do a thing – it'll fall into place. If not, that's when I need to act.

Anne storms into the room just as I move on to thinking about what I predict tonight's homework is, and I smile nervously at her as she sits down and gets her things out, making a huge production out of the simple task.

"Anne, I'm sorry," I say, even though I have nothing to be sorry about.

"Its fine," she says forebodingly, indicating that I'm not yet forgiven.

"Really," I persist. "I was just going by what you told me. I saw passion in the way you asked him. Strange, fairly frightening passion, but passion nonetheless."

"You saw wrong," she says shortly. "I'm going to go on that date Sunday, and I promise you, Lily, I won't feel a thing when I'm there and this whole thing will just blow over. Okay?"

"Okay," I agree, though I'm going to personally ensure that it doesn't blow over at all. "That sounds good."

"Good." Finally, Anne believes me and smiles, but I turn away from her before letting my somewhat more malevolent (and less characteristic) grin show up.

She only _thinks_ I'll leave her alone, and for now, that works for me; it'll just make my matchmaking job all the more easier.

In the safety of my mind, I make my first ever evil laugh; Anneliese Weathers and James Potter have no idea what they are in for from supposedly sweet, innocent Lily Evans.

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**A/N: Yeah, a very weird and creepy sort of ending there, but I'm not very good at ending things, I'm sorry about that. Just review and tell me what you think!  
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	3. Of Denial and James Potter

**A/N: The pacing for this chapter is kind of hideous; I think I should tell you that from the start. I don't like how it turned out, but I don't know how to fix it, so I'm just posting it the way it is. I intend for this whole story to be a fairly quick and breezy read, so what I have probably works out all right, but I feel I should let you know that up here. I do hope you like this though, and will review!

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Today, a theoretically normal Sunday morning, our dormitory has officially exploded; it seems that the Apocalypse has come at last to my tiny room in Gryffindor tower.

At least, to Anne the Apocalypse has come for her – she is having the biggest crisis of her life today. Why? The choice of what to wear for her 'desired date' with James Potter is just about killing her.

From nine in the morning onwards, Anne has been turning her clothes drawer inside out constantly, looking for the perfect outfit for the afternoon, and is beyond the point of no return. I've been watching her clothes cyclone for hours now, and despite going through every article of clothing she owns, Anne has not yet found what she's looking for. I was frantic at first, trying to find something with her, but slowly, the duty became quite tiresome; now I'm lying around on my bed with a bit of oatmeal snagged at light-speed from the Great Hall while I pretended to be in the bathroom thinking of attire for Anne, and watching quite calmly as my friend continues to go hysterical.

"Lily, what am I going to _do_?" she wails for the twelfth time in ten minutes. "I don't have _anything_!"

"I offered you my clothes, but you didn't want them," I say, taking a bite of my oatmeal.

"That's because your clothes are dull and shapeless," Anne says. "I've told you a million times; you have an arse – flaunt it."

"I like my loose jeans, thank you very much," I say indignantly.

"I wish _my_ arse was like yours." Anne gestures to her rear. "Mine is chunky, but yours is perfect. It's not too big and not too small either; why can't all arses look like yours?"

"Are you done analyzing my arse yet?" I inquire, making a face. "I didn't think it would be of that much interest to you, Anne."

"Shut up," Anne says, chucking a pillow from the ground at me. "I'm not _that _interested in your arse, I'm just commenting on how good it would look in tight jeans. I'm your friend and fashion consultant, and I'm telling you – you'd look great if I chose your clothes for you."

"If you were in charge of my clothes, I'd be wearing tube tops and the tiniest-sized jeans stores carry," I point out dryly.

"Well, yeah, because you have this tiny, stick-like little body that would look good in such things," she says. "Now enough about you – help _me_ now. I'm the one who has a date today."

"Yes, well, I'm trying, but you're being difficult," I say defensively. "Do you want to wear something casual, or formal?"

"I don't know!" she wails once again.

"I'd say casual – you're not desperate," I say, smirking as I walk over to her. "Here; why don't you wear this skirt?" I hold up her white one and show it to her, trying to tempt her.

She considers. "Maybe. What with though?"

I dig through the mountain of shirts on the floor and pick out a sapphire blue one – it's not too flirty, but the neckline is low enough to interest Anne. "This?"

I'm right on; she takes it from me and looks it over as if it's the first time she's seen it, even though she has thrown it across the room at least four times already. "Hmmm," she says thoughtfully.

"Stop trying my patience and just use it," I say edgily.

"Fine, fine, if it makes you happy," Anne says. From her tone of voice, one would think that she's doing _me_ a personal favor, rather than accepting advice on what to wear for a date.

I sigh, going along with it this time. "It does make me happy, so please put it on so that we can get some real breakfast; I think I'm dying here."

"Okay." She waves her wand, making her clothes fold neatly and slide into their drawer, and ambles off to the bathroom to change. I scarf down the rest of that oatmeal I'd nicked and wait for her to come out, eager to really _eat_; I eat so much sometimes that Anne jokes that I share my appetite with Sirius, who also eats like a pig, and that is definitely saying something.

After about half an hour, when I'm just about to pass out with hunger, she emerges from the bathroom, thrilled with herself; she's tied her dirty-blonde hair back and is utterly delighted with how she's done her make-up, and tries to tell me all about it.

"Do you like it, Lily?" she asks at the end of a ramble I didn't even listen to.

"It's lovely, Annie, but I need to have breakfast," I say tiredly.

"Lily!" Anne smacks her forehead with the palm of her hand in frustration. "All you can think about is your stomach, and I have a date with James Potter in, like, five hours!"

"You hated him – you didn't care about this date, remember?" I remind her.

She recalls this minor little detail for the first time in a _while_; obviously thrown off-track, she mumbles, "Yes, of course; I don't care at all. Right."

I smirk. "Desperate."

"Hush! I am not desperate!" Anne insists.

"Whatever you say, love," I say, picking myself up from my bed and walking to the door. "Now, I need to eat if I don't want to die, so I'm leaving – come with me if you want, but I'm not waiting for you."

"Fine," she says with a pout. "I'll just see you downstairs then. Or maybe before the date I don't care about, to make sure that I look okay for the boy I hate."

"Yes, of course," I say sarcastically. "You've got to make sure your clothes are as revealing as you can possibly make them before you go out on a date with a guy you'll basically massacre for even thinking about looking at you in the places where you show skin, right?"

"Exactly." Anne smiles at me. "I'm glad you understand how this works now."

"You're so in love with him." I grin and open the door, leaning on it before I exit out of it. However, Anne is in the process of hunting down something heavy to hurl at me, so I quickly run out of the room with a squeal before she has luck finding something. I scurry down to the Great Hall, ravenous, and take a seat on the Gryffindor table's bench, at peace for the first time today. Being away from Anne often has that effect on me. I butter my toast placidly, not in any kind of rush; that is, until James Potter slides slickly down the bench several meters just to park himself by me. I don't notice him at first, but then he goes on sitting there next to me, unmoving. I'm quite disturbed by this, because I feel his presence suddenly and jump violently. I immediately inquire, out of sheer reflex, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I was about to ask you something, but I can't remember what it was," he says vaguely, as though he's doing his musing aloud. This isn't a particularly noteworthy remark of his, but what does catch me off-guard is the absence of his usual flirtation. There's none of it there – in front of me sits only a polite young man trying to gather his thoughts, nothing more. I haven't talked to James much at all since the year started (I might have, but even then, my brain is always on forget-James mode by default, which is kind of pathetic on both counts) so I haven't seen how much he's changed, and I'm astonished by it; there was no evidence of such a person in James for years until this very moment.

"Well, it's a bit uncomfortable, so can you please either ask me or leave?" I don't intend to sound rude, but I think it comes out that way, because he says quickly, "Oh, I'm sorry."

And he scoots back to Sirius and Peter. Just like that.

I'm left staring after him as he rejoins his friends like an idiot; what just happened here? Just to be safe, I sniff a lock of my hair cautiously; it smells just the same as it normally does – like my watermelon shampoo – but I just need to double-check. Once, James moved away from me in the same sort of fashion in fourth year because I'd forgotten to wash my hair in the morning and it reeked hideously without my knowing it. I somehow never forgot that incident and am quite careful about my hair every time someone bolts away from me that way. I smell fine today though, so I don't know why he left. His constant flirting, while annoying, had always been a constant in my life – something that never really changed, no matter what I did to him, and without it, I feel like something minor is missing, like a birthday cake without any candles. Some vain, arrogant part of me still wants to believe that James is in love with me despite all that's gone on; it refuses to comprehend that James has done the impossible and grown up because it goes against everything that had ever. I'm not sure with side of me to go with, since both are convinced that they are right, and I feel slightly out-of-control. What now?

I turn my head in the opposite direction of James with great difficulty and finish my food up then, wondering what Anne would have said had she been here for what happened right now. Would she have insisted that he was in love with me? It didn't appear that he did, but Anne has never cared about that; she'd find some way to warp the facts to make them work to her advantage, I'm sure. It's not exactly an uncommon phenomenon to argue with myself or with Anne about whether or not my feelings for James are positive or negative, but at the same time, I'm aggravated by how much these feelings consume me. It's so easy to let my mind divert to thoughts of idiotic James Potter, for whatever screwy reason it is.

Ugh; I throw my fork down to the table and stomp out of the hall to go back to the common room. I think I'm done with breakfast today.

**&&&**

It is two fifty five in the afternoon now – only five minutes before the date of the millennium, I reckon – and Anne is, for once, truly calm.

I'm quite impressed, to be quite honest, because the morning was a disaster for her, but now, she's calm, cool, and collected. She is sitting with me in the Entrance Hall on the stairs, waiting for James to show up, and she's not talking. I'm tapping my foot and twirling my hair, two things I do when I'm nervous, but I decide to ask her what's on my mind; "How are you so calm now when you weren't earlier?"

"You thought I liked him because I fussed over my clothes, but I don't," Anne clarifies bluntly, as usual.

"Fuss is an understatement," I say. "You acted as though each one of those pieces of cloth did you personal wrong, Annie."

"Well, so what if I did?" she says defensively. "I still don't like him and I'm going to prove it to you. It'll all be okay – I'm not at all in love with James Bloody Potter."

"That's a good name for him," I comment.

"Thank you," Anne says with a pleased nod. "See? I came up with a great insulting name for him too; I don't love him after all."

I choose to say nothing, because at this point, James walks very purposefully into the Entrance Hall, sees us, and catches Anne's eye. Anne gives me a quick look, takes a breath, gets up, and goes to meet James, her grin wide. I follow along to see them off, but James takes it completely the wrong way.

"Are we taking Lily and making it a group event, then?" he asks. Normally, if he was to ask such a thing, there would be a note of hopefulness in his tone; today, however, there is nothing but polite interest. It startles me, actually, and makes me think back to the ordeal at breakfast again – this definitely isn't the James Potter I know. He's completely different, and I find myself not liking this at all, even though all I'd ever done to him was demand that he change himself. Is he _mature_ now then? Wow; I never thought I'd ever see the day, but apparently, it's here, unless my eyes are playing a horribly cruel prank on me.

"No, of course not," Anne says, gently moving me away from them. "It's just us two. Are you ready?"

"Yes, I am." James smiles at her, not at me for once, and offers her his hand. "Let's go."

Anne says good-bye to me and accompanies him out of the front doors, but I do notice that James does not even look back at me once, let alone give me a flirty wink or something stupid like that. Why is this bothering me so much? It really shouldn't be; I'm finally getting what I wanted. So, if that's the case, why am I feeling so crummy about it?

I sigh; there's nothing like a good, unsolved mystery to keep me obsessively thinking about it on my day off, I figure as I wander back to my dormitory.

**&&&**

At four today, I am resting on my stomach atop my bed, reading a book, when the door to the dormitory opens and Anne sidles in. I look up, eager to see a reaction of some sort on her face, but all I see are hints at very carefully concealed emotion. She stands in the frame of the door, staring at me, until I ask, "So how did your date go? Was it educational?"

Anne strides to her own bed, picks up her pillow, screams her lungs out into it and making me jump, and then looks back up at me, her face the same as before. "It was awful and I hated it. I'm never doing it again."

I smirk. "An honest answer, if you please?"

"That was an honest answer," she says defiantly.

"Annie, I've known you since first year – it's kind of hard to fool me now," I point out soothingly. "I'll ask you one more time; how did the date go?"

Anne takes a dramatic sigh before saying, "It was all right. We went to The Three Broomsticks, he bought me butterbeer, and we talked. He's really very funny, Lily."

"What did you talk about?" I continue to probe.

"Listen, I don't want to talk about it," she says, lying back on the pillow she'd previously screamed in. "For now, I want to take a nap and forget about that date."

I attempt to get something else out of her, but she cuts me off with an enormous fake snore and turns over, leaving me frustrated at her lack of details. She just went on a date with James Potter, and she doesn't have _anything_ to tell me about it?! That's both very cruel and very unfair, and I do not appreciate it in the least – I want to know if matchmaking would be a good idea or not! How can she do this to me? I've been dying to know for the entire hour she's been gone, and what do I get? Absolutely nothing. I think she's trying to kill me and it's working quite well so far.

Restlessly, I close my book and start pacing the tiny dormitory; if Anne can't tell me something herself, I'll have to take matters into my own hands – I'll have to take the information from a different source. Is there anyone I can talk to? James's name pops into my head first, but I dismiss it at once; I can't talk to James Potter about a date with my best friend because, of course, it would be incredibly awkward and I wouldn't want to do it, especially with this newfound maturity of James's in the equation. Again I ask myself – what can I do to help make this fairytale come true?

I look over to my friend, who is motionless on her bed, but I doubt that she is really asleep; she's probably just thinking about James again. She really does appear to like him, but she simply won't try to get his attention for reasons unknown to me. They're an awesome couple, as she's probably discovered today on the date, and it's probably just freaking her out that there's someone in the world that she could feel so strongly about. She does believe in love, but she doesn't believe in loving someone for a very, very long time; perhaps her feelings for James are suggesting what she doesn't believe in. I know her well enough to know that my guess is probably very accurate.

I decide that it's time to start matchmaking now; I mean, if it had been a terrible date, Anne would have been more than happy to start complaining about it so to criticize James, but she hasn't, which means something went right. Her passiveness is saying much more than her words can, in this situation, and I'm taking it as a green light to go ahead with whatever plan comes to mind.

I smile a sly smile that no one will ever see; I'll start first thing tomorrow.

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**A/N: Lol no, you don't get to find out exactly what happened at the date right now, sorry about that. However, Anne's lack of detail should probably tell you the gist of what you need to know, so while you brood on that, please leave me a review!!  
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	4. Of James Potter, Obviously

**A/N: Wee! I'm glad you're enjoying this story as much as you all seem to be; that's always lovely to know! I still don't know how long I want this story to be, but as of now, I tentatively reckon between ten and fifteen chapters, but that's just an approximation – with me, length and time is never set in stone, something some of you may already know. :) Waving that aside though, you may now read/review!

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In the morning, Monday, I get up earlier than usual by my eyes opening at a weird time, but this time, I know exactly why; I need to know all about Anne's date yesterday so that I can gauge how much I want to interfere with her very capable love life. My inner alarm clock recognizes these types of wishes very nicely, as demonstrated just now, and I thank it as I leap out of bed and shake Anne violently.

Like the last previous occasion I used this tactic in, Anne asks me to do a few highly obscene things before turning over away from me, but I don't give up; as persistent as a fly banging repeatedly into a glass window, I go on waking her up until she finally sits up, disheveled and upset.

"What the fuck do you want?" she demands.

"Language, Anne," I reprimand her. "You know that that's the one word I don't like."

"That's why I said it," Anne tells me grimly. "Now spit it out, would you? I want to bloody sleep."

"I want to know about your date," I say, my voice a tad less challenging as I wanted it to be.

"Well, I don't want to tell you," Anne says resolutely.

"Why not? Did you do the unspeakable and – gasp – enjoy it?" I ask smartly, my expression interested.

Anne makes a face at me and puts up a middle finger at me. "No, I didn't."

"You don't have to act so dreadfully about it," I say, pretending to be offended. "If you really don't want me around that much, then I guess I'll go."

This is my favorite way of emotionally blackmailing her; Anne, though she is my best friend, is often rougher on me than she is on other people because I know her so well and have special powers on her that no one else has. To keep her in her place when she's being obnoxious, all I need to do is temporarily get out of her life, and within five minutes, I get an apology, a hug, and whatever it was that I wanted from her before she started acting like a bitch. She has a weird way of showing it, but Anne does care about me, and can't stay angry with me for too long.

Sure enough, after two minutes of being in the bathroom, Anne ambles over to me, throws her arms around my neck, and says, "I'm sorry, Lily, I'm just tired. Don't hate me."

"I don't hate you," I say, hugging her back. "You're my best friend, even if you say bad things to me."

"Sorry," she says, the genuine regret evident in her voice. "What was it that you wanted to know?"

'Bingo,' I think to myself, grinning internally. However, I hide this as I clear my throat and say as innocently as I can muster, "I wanted to know about your date."

"Oh, that." Anne's face grows dark, but she and I go to her bed and sit on it while she tries to figure what to say and how to say it. I wait patiently, knowing that if I rush her, I will not only get no information, but she will be in such a bad mood that I'll never get anything at all. I know I should feel a little guilty for being such a busybody, but at the same time, I'm only _helping_; there's nothing wrong with helping, is there? There can't be, so when Anne starts off her story, I listen intently, taking intricate notes in my head.

"Well, it was fine to start off with," she says fairly. "When we left you in the Entrance Hall, James didn't talk about you at all, for once. He just remarked that you didn't shout at him for anything this time – something that was so true that I had to laugh. Sorry," she adds apologetically.

"It's fine – what else?" I ask, determined to know about something that didn't involve making fun of me and what I used to say/do.

"The walk there was a bit awkward, but that was because I've hardly ever talked to the guy," Anne continues, her eyes oddly dreamy as she talks. "He's a good leader though; he kind of took the conversation into his own hands and broke the ice a little bit. He made some jokes, told some stories, asked some questions…I remember admitting to myself that he was very sweet."

"So far, so good," I say encouragingly. "What else?"

"By the time we got to The Three Broomsticks, I was kind of having fun," she says, looking quite disappointed by what she's saying. "Kind of. He was really nice – it was hard not to have fun. He bought me butterbeer and we talked more. He was so _interested_ about everything I said; he wanted to know all about me, and I'm like, no guy I've ever dated has cared about that sort of stuff! So I talked for a while, but then I wanted to know about him too, so I asked him some questions too. He's a good listener."

I smile immensely, pleased with how well James matches her. I'd known it would work out all along! "And?" I prompt her once more.

"You came up a few times in the conversation," Anne admits.

"What?" Forgetting about how happy I am for her, I find myself almost wailing at her, "What did you say about me?"

"Nothing bad, before you accuse me of it," she says defensively. "He asked me about my friends, and I said you were one of my closest ones. I could tell that he wanted to know more about you than the other girls I mentioned, so I told him that you were a studyholic, but I love you anyway."

I throw her a filthy look. "What did he say to that?"

"He just said he could have figured that one out by himself," she says with a laugh. "But he was the most animated when we were talking about you, I can tell you that much. I think that he's still in love with you."

"No, he likes you; he went out with you," I say impatiently. "But what else did you say about me?" I can't explain it, but it's a matter of great urgency for me to know about every word exchanged between my best friend and my ex-enemy; I have no time or mind space to question why.

"Well, I said that you were a lovely, lovely girl, and if it wasn't for you, I'd fail school," Anne says casually. "He agreed with me – he said, and I quote, that you 'can be a tad annoying about the studying thing, but is a great person.' He wondered aloud why you hated him so much, but I could tell it mattered to him what I said."

"So what did you say?"

"I said that it was because he was obnoxious to you before," Anne tells me. "Which is true. I said that you're a bit challenged with relationships, so go abnormally slow if he wants to get you to even say a few words to him."

"Thanks," I say, disgruntled.

"No problem," Anne says. "But he laughed and said he'd keep that in mind before changing the subject again, this time to something else he wanted to know about me. That was it for the part about you."

"Good," I say with relief. I don't want them discussing me when I'm not around, but at the same time, I'm almost…_disappointed_. I kind of _want_ James to wonder about me; it's closer to the person he used to be. This new James is kind of scaring me; he's too polite, too mature, and too frightening in how completely he's changed. Now that I have what I want, I almost want to go back to the way things used to be. Almost.

I shake these thoughts off though; the way I'm thinking, I almost sound wistful, as though I like him, which I obviously don't. I'm just…disconcerted, that's all. I clear my head and ask Anne more questions about the date, but this is all I really need to know; I hardly listen to what she says next. I'm lost in my own thoughts, mostly about what James thinks of me. He used to think the world of me, but now, I don't know. He doesn't talk to me anymore. I almost forgot he existed, until now. He was just a faded image, someone used for slights on messiness or arrogance, but other than that, he was out of my life. I didn't miss him either, until I realized how empty my life has become without having that detestable offer to go out every other day. It's just work and my friendship with Anne now; that's kind of sad, now that I really, really put my mind to thinking about it. Now that my head is working straight again, I know that I don't wish he was stalking me, but I do wish that he at least said _something_ to me. Even when he was annoying, talking to him had been interesting. James could be funny and sensitive when he didn't work so hard on impressing.

I'm wrapped up in my own little world until I hear Anne shouting in my ear. "LILY! What the hell is wrong with you? I'm telling you everything, and you aren't even listening to me!"

"What?" I jump and turn to face her; she looks rightfully irate. "I'm so sorry," I say truthfully. "I was just thinking about what you had told me."

"Sure you were," she says, rolling her eyes. "But we have to go get ready; you can think in class. I need to have water – I've been babbling on forever about the date, and though you were the one who asked about it, you didn't pay attention to half of the things I said."

"I'm sorry, Anne," I say again. "But you had fun, didn't you? I was right; when are you going out again? Did he ask you?"

"Yes, he did ask me out again for Friday night, but it's a group date," she says. "The Marauders, him, and some select others are going out to Hogsmeade and he wanted to know if I wanted to go."

"What did you say?"

"I said I'd let him know," Anne says carelessly. "I don't know if I want to go; I kind of only wanted to go out with him once to show you how it was done."

"Annie, you can't possibly think that this date was purely for me now," I say. "You forgot all about me when you were there; you like him."

"Okay, I'm going to be totally honest here with you, so what's said in this room goes no farther than this room," Anne says sternly. "Yes, I like him, but I don't want to get into a relationship for two reasons – one is that I've never been in a relationship that worked, and as much as I like him now, I won't in a few weeks because I don't believe in long-term; I just like a short fling here and there."

"Annie, don't be stupid," I say. "You like him a lot – trust him and trust your own feelings; this could work. But what's the other reason."

"He's meant for _you_, not me," Anne says, her grin reminding me irresistably of a jack-o-lantern. "I can't take a boy that loves you and that you love back; that's unnecessarily bad."

I lob the first pillow I see at her. "We're not meant to be, Anne. If we're meant to be, then we're kind of supposed to like each other, and I don't like him."

"You do too," Anne says, tossing the pillow back at me. "You like him and you know it."

"We haven't talked in ages," I say, hearing something that sounds strangely like sadness creep into my voice. "I can't just _like_ him all of a sudden."

"Love knows no limitations," Anne says mysteriously. "And this, my dear Lily, is the truest of true loves. You've loved him for ages."

"Nonsense," I say airily, regaining my control over myself. "_You_ are in love with James Potter, not me, and you need to tell him you're going to go with him and his friends on Friday if you don't want me to scream at you and/or tell him myself."

A sneaky smile plays on the corners of Anne's mouth. "You'd tell him _for_ me, you say?"

"Maybe," I say, faltering now that I realize my mistake. 'Shit,' I think to myself. 'What did I have to go and say that for?'

"Well, then I'm going to make you," Anne says. The creepy quality in her face and voice brings back memories of watching animal movies with my father on the television, when the unknowing, defenseless rabbits were about to become lunch for a larger, more vicious animal; I'm the rabbit, in this case, and Anne is looking at me as though she is the jaguar.

"You're going to make me do what?" I ask, playing it safe by simply playing dumb.

"You're going to tell James that I am only going on this group thing if you and I both can go," she announces as though it's obvious.

"No!" I object at once.

"Yes, otherwise I'm not going," Anne says, satisfied.

I sigh; do I have any other choice? This is one of the most clear-cut matchmaking choices I will ever get, and if I don't take it, my friend's happy ending will be ruined.

"Fine," I give in hopelessly. "I will tell him."

"Excellent." Anne thumps me on the back before bouncing up. "But you have to tell him _today_, because I told him I'd let him know by Transfiguration."

I nearly fall off the bed; she's giving me no time to mentally prepare?! Is she joking?! Apparently, she isn't, so in the most defeated tone I know how to use, I say, "Oh fine."

Elatedly, Anne whoops and says, "Wow, you really do think we're meant to be. I don't think anything else would have made you say yes to that."

I grimace. "You _are_ the perfect couple, and if I can help you see that, I shall."

"Wow," Anne comments. "But if you care about punctuality to class, you'd better hurry up; we got caught up in conversation when we were supposed to start getting ready, so we don't have much time to work with. C'mon."

"Oh, okay." I get off the bed and look for something to wear, numerous butterflies starting to make their home in my stomach though I try to hide how much their movement is affecting me. "Let's hurry; I have to talk to McGonagall about something." This is a lie, but I'm hoping she'll buy it.

She doesn't; "Yes, but before you talk to her, you are going to talk to James Potter," she reminds me, a certain glorious power in her voice.

I roll my eyes at her and keep my face turned away until Anne is safely in the bathroom brushing her teeth; at this point, I sit on my bed, holding a shirt, my loosest jeans, and the only belt I own that's tight enough to keep those jeans on my body, and I think about how screwed I am. I have no doubt that Anne is going to literally make me talk to James, and I feel sick just thinking about that, especially knowing what part I played in their conversation during the date and how much James used to care about me. That just made it infinitely more awkward.

That's the worst thing about us, I realize as I slowly start to change while waiting for the bathroom; James and I might actually be friends, but the stupid things we did when we were young create a history and a reputation for each of us that neither James nor I can get past, unlike the normal people in the world can. We're still stuck at the beginning, but this time, we've got a mess around us to keep us from moving forward. Any Divination teacher would tell us that the stars hated us from the days we were born when given the specifics as they are.

The most depressing part of that, though, is that we might, in fact, move forward despite the stars' abhorrence; but mixed signals, potential misconceptions, and a lack of will to try keeps us from doing anything besides waiting for someone else to make a move. However no one will make a move; it's up to us, and we're the worst possible candidates for this kind of a game. I think I'm more disappointed by these considerations than I probably should be, but at the same time, I think that since I'm included in the conclusion (_not_ because I'm in love with the bloody boy), I have every right to be.

**&&&**

Once Anne and I are set to go, I find we only have ten minutes to get to the classroom and get our homework out to pass in the moment the bell rings. Of course, the obvious thing to say to that is I don't have any time to talk to James, end of story, but it turns out that Anne is thinking differently – she runs me over to the classroom, her speed matching only the time when she thought they had a bowl of fudge as a special treat during lunch a couple of years ago, which means I have plenty of time to both talk and prepare. Damn.

"C'mon, Lily; you said you would," Anne says. "Besides, if you are as cool as you say you are in front of James, then this shouldn't be a problem."

"Why can't you tell him yourself?" I grumble.

"Because I can make you do it for me, which is far more entertaining," Anne clarifies. "Now go." She gives me a small shove towards James's table in the corner of the room. He is sitting on it, talking/laughing with Sirius, Remus, and Peter as usual, until I nervously approach him, praying that I don't look as awful as I feel. Peter is the one who sees me, clears his throat significantly, and gestures to me. James gets the drift and turns to see me, astonished that I've seemingly-voluntarily come to talk to him.

"Hey Evans," he says.

"Evans!" Sirius puts out his arms jovially. "Hug me!" Peter giggles at this, but Remus shoots him a look; Remus, contrasting the rest of them, truly cares about whether or not I like something and tries to help me control his friends to the best of his abilities.

"No, thank you," I decline. "James, I have to tell you something."

"Okay," James says, not a hint of flirtation in his voice. I'm not yet able to get over my disconcertedness over his newborn development, and that makes the conversation even more awkward. It's a feat I wouldn't have thought possible by this point – the most awkward I thought two people could get – but apparently, there are no limits to awkwardness.

"Anne says that she will go with you to Hogsmeade…so long as she can bring me." I say the last part with as much resentment as I can muster, not looking at his face. "Sorry about that, Anne is just so very rude, you didn't invite me at all and I wouldn't blame you for saying no –"

I'm babbling, and I know it, but it's easier than letting silence take over and making me more uncomfortable still. However, what astonishes me is when James cuts me off by gently saying, "You can tell Anne that I would love for you both to join us on Friday."

"And I really don't think – wait, what?" I stop mid-rant, sounding and feeling utterly stupid. Did he just agree with me?

"I said that you can tell Anne that I would love for both of you to join us on Friday when we go to Hogsmeade," James says again for me.

"It was her idea, she was just being stupid, I don't want you to feel like you're obligated to have me along; Anne says I'm boring, which is probably true, and I'd intrude on your fun, which is a bad thing…" Now that the no-limits-to-awkwardness rule is enforced, I feel I must know; is there another rule that says there is no limit to how lame I am in front of him too?

"No, Lily," he says tolerantly, smiling slightly as Remus and Peter fully laugh now. "I want you to come with us. You need to have some fun once in a while."

"All right, well, that's very kind of you; thank you," I say stiffly, blushing profusely. "I…I'll see you then?"

"Yes." His eyes are slightly mischievous, as his previously almost-nice grin. "See you then."

I give him one more little smile and turn around to leave when the bell rings, which gives me reason to scamper to my table where Anne is sitting, in peals of laughter.

"I talked to him," I say without any need.

"Yes, you did," Anne wheezes, passing in her homework and mine for McGonagall, who is demanding our attention. "It was hysterical; I wish I could have shown you just how funny you looked." In an imitation of me, she says with exaggerated pauses, "Anne is being stupid, I'm boring, don't invite me…tell me Lily, how socially deficient are you?"

I have no answer for her, since this is the same question that's going through my own mind, so I say, "I don't know, but I told him when you thought I couldn't, so cut me a _little_ slack, would you?"

"Okay," Anne says, still chuckling. "That was side-splitting though, Lils; you're the perfect example of what not to do when talking to a guy."

"Thanks," I say sardonically, pulling out my parchment and quill to take notes.

"Sorry," she says, finally seeing how wound up I am. "Really, I am. But you did it, like you said, didn't you? That matters; and, better yet, you've finally got something interesting to do Friday night! Yay!"

"Whoopee," I say unenthusiastically.

She playfully thumps me on the back. "Cheer up. You're going to have fun, I promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that," I tell her.

"Okay," Anne says. "But you have to promise me one thing."

"Haven't you had enough of forcing to make promises that do nothing but embarrass me?" I inquire.

She ignores this and says, "Just promise that if James flirts with you, you will respond."

I sigh. "What do you think my answer to that will be?"

"Yes, Anne, I will be a good girl and flirt when the time comes?" she asks hopefully.

"Nice try," I say. "My answer is no."

Rolling her eyes, Anne turns her attention to Professor McGonagall as she says something about the Switching Spells we're working on, and I shock myself by not doing the same thing; instead, I go back to the thoughts about James I'd been having when I was dressing, the ones about possibly being able to be friends with him. After talking to him, I know that any hopes of acting normal around him should be dashed, but right now, I'm more interested in _why_ I can't act normal. It should be very easy, seeing as he is just another boy who means very little to me, but somehow, it isn't. I always feel sick when I'm around him – as though I'm going to be sick or something. There's something that tightens in me, like reigns tighten their hold on a horse, and it scares me because I not only don't know what it is, but the intensity of it determines how distant I am from James. What is it? Why is it there? Why does it only happen to me? No other girl acts so foolish around him. I mean, I'm sixteen years old; I got over this whole stomachache-around-a-guy thing when I was fourteen. Why is it that I start acting like a little girl when I'm around James? I'm never like that with anyone else. For the life of me, I can't understand what is going on or why I'm thinking about it so much.

Being the studious person that I am, I quickly start clearing my head of such thoughts so that I can focus on the lesson again. I take notes and ask questions, as usual, and forget about James as I lose myself in the world of magic. It's so much easier to fathom than the world of my thoughts, which are often very contradictory and difficult to get rid of. Anne also forgets for a little while as she muddles over the subject matter and asks me questions about it under her breath so that no one can hear us, and I'm grateful for that; if she forgets, she won't be too observant about how unusually vacant I am from the lecture – my fears for Friday are still taking up a considerable portion of my brain, which is displeasing and fairly embarrassing as well. It's supposed to be a group event, but will it turn into a date when all the guys and girls show up, find their friends (more like boy/girlfriends), and couple up? Will I have to be alone? Will James talk to me? More importantly, will Anne even talk to me while she's busy trying to deny her obvious feelings for James? If she doesn't, I suppose I can always talk to Remus, but Remus always talks to Peter or James himself, which would make things pretty discomfiting yet again. I want to throw something because of the intensity my frustration; stupid bloody Anne – why did she make me come anyway? It would have made my life so much easier; I wouldn't have to think so much about what I'm going to do about James Potter.

From the very, _very_ far corner of my eye, I steal a peek at James to see what he's doing as I hate him for inviting Anne to a group date, but as I do, I can almost swear I see James's shadowy hazel eyes turned very, _very_ slightly to me as well.

* * *

**A/N: Again, not quite pleased with some aspects of this chapter, but on the whole, I think it was all right; I got all that I needed to get. The ending there was kind of sudden, but I couldn't think of a better one, seeing as endings are obviously not my strong points; however, I'd love it if you could review and tell me what you thought!  
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	5. Of James Potter's History

**A/N: Wow…this is weird, moving through a story this quickly. It makes me realize how slow my pace usually is – or, maybe my previous pace was okay and this one is wayyyy too fast. I don't know. However, here is this chapter, and I do hope you enjoy it! It was a fiddly one to write, for very obvious reasons – ones you may see now, but ones you will definitely see by the end. :P So enjoy; don't forget to review at the end.

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The day of the dreaded date (a type of date Anne forgot to mention in her oh-so-intellectual sermon a few days back) tiptoes quite slowly up to me in the midst of my workload; when Friday morning rolls around, I honestly can't believe that it's already on an hourly countdown to my doom. There's a brilliant example on how much those damn stars hate me so much – when I want time to slow down, it only speeds up, but when I want nothing more than to breeze by a day and get to something else, it goes by about as quickly as thick maple syrup trickling down the side of a jar. I swear; my luck is so bad, it's a miracle I've made it through seventeen years of my life already.

I roll out of bed this morning, these negative little deliberations floating around in my head, yawning and anxious about what's probably going to happen tonight, and I get ready for the next day. I feel like a robot as I do this; I go through this same routine every single day in the school year. It's so dull that I don't even think about it anymore – that's kind of dismal, if I'm honest with myself. I reflect on that as I pull on my socks – Anne is quite right; I'm more boring than I thought. Maybe this horrific group date she wants me to go on is a good thing in disguise – it'll break my monotony a little bit, which might be a good thing. I'm a creature of regularity; would it kill me to be different once in a while?

Once I'm finished, I awaken Anne, who is more gracious about getting out of bed today; I'm about to ask her about it until she tells me joyfully, "Today's the day, Lily!"

"Yes, it is," I say, disgruntled. "This stupid date is going to be hell."

"Well, I meant that today is the day before a nice, relaxing weekend, but yes, we have that date too – thanks for reminding me," she says brightly.

Feeling utterly stupid, I want to hit myself; did I really think that this date was the only thing that Anne cared about? Ugh – if I had the option to, I would kill myself a million times over just for saying those two sentences, but of course, I can't. So instead, I settle for a dissatisfied pout and give her a sarcastic, "No problem."

Anne thumps me on the back before heading the bathroom. "You know I love you, Lils; I wouldn't make you do something that was bad for you, so just trust me when I say that tonight will be fun. Loosen up, all right?"

I roll my eyes, but say purely for her own benefit, "Sure."

"Good Lily." Anne's smile is devilish as she shuts the bathroom door; I don't really know what to make of it, as is the custom with her and me. I puzzle over the complexities of my best friend as I descend down the dormitory stairs into the common room; so much, in fact, that I bump into some person – a boy, judging from the size – as I walk to the portrait hole.

"Sorry," I mumble, not seeing who it is.

"No problem," a familiar voice says to me. I look up instinctively, and see none other than the face of James Potter just slightly above me. Damn.

"James," I say, astonished.

"Yes, it's me." He smiles; I must amuse him, seeing as I was contemplative before seeing who it was that I had run into – I had become a bit flustered when I saw who he was, and I know it to be a reality.

"Mhmm, it's definitely you," I agree foolishly. I want to hit myself again; what had possessed me to say something so stupid? Why do I always lose my head when I talk to him? It's like being a hormonal pre-teen all over again; I thought I was over that a while back.

"So…I'll see you tonight then?" James asks me then, his hazel eyes boring uncomfortably deep into my own green ones; I feel virtually exposed under his scrutinizing stare.

"Yes, you will," I confirm for him. "All Anne's fault, of course, but you will."

He laughs – it's a loose, easy sort of laugh, rather than the annoyingly deliberate ones he used to use when he was around me. "I think it'll be good for you, Lily. You'll have fun, I promise."

"That's exactly what Anne told me not even five minutes ago," I realize.

"See? Now you know for sure you'll be fine." His smile is a little naughty now – much like his old one. "Are you nervous about it because of me?"

He was always blunt; at least _that_ never changed.

"No," I lie as convincingly as I can. "Of course not."

Appearing to sense my dishonesty, he nods, but does not further press the point, to my very great relief. "Okay," he says to me.

I say nothing in return, but give him a swift wave of my hand and get through the portrait hole, eager to get to Transfiguration instead of going to the Great Hall for breakfast, where I would definitely see James. My stomach is begging me to get some food, but I am rapid in shutting it up despite my desire to listen to it; after what just happened, I think it would probably just be better for me and James Potter to not be in the same room together.

**&&&**

By the afternoon, I don't feel ready for Hogsmeade at all; I only feel ready for a hot shower and bed.

The day had been hideous – full of homework, stress, and the usual related-nonsense. I half-heartedly request to stay back when Anne starts fluffing up her hair and picking clothes for the date out of sheer exhaustion, but of course, Anne is not supportive in the least. When I tell her my reasoning, she insists that this date is even better for me; some fun will do my constant worrying some good. Again, I say I don't want to go, but I am told to sit tight so that she can finish with herself and then get to me. This sounds ominous, but I choose to keep my mouth shut – she sounds like she means business.

Anne doesn't wear makeup (she claims that it is an atrocious mix of junk that should not be smeared all over anyone's face unless they are subjected to torture for a felony), but she looks quite nice in her navy skirt and white halter shirt with her hair tied in her signature messy ponytail when she comes out to model for me from the bathroom. I compliment on her on her choice of attire, and she looks rather pleased.

"Thanks," she says. "Now what are _you_ going to wear?"

"I dunno – this?" I signal to my faded indigo jeans and pink t-shirt.

Anne snorts. "You must be joking. At least wear a tube top."

"It's only a group date, Annie," I remind her. "I'm not out to impress anyone. I'll go casually – no tube tops."

She opens her mouth, but I cut her off again by saying, "And no halters either."

"What about –?"

"No, I don't want to wear a super low-neck t-shirt either," I interrupt her.

Anne sighs with irritation. "Fine. Don't wear those, but can you at least wear an off-shoulder top? I don't want to see anything modest; be sexy tonight, for once in your life."

"Oh go on then," I say reluctantly. This offer is the closest I'm going to get to a decent outfit.

"Yay!" Anne gives me a quick hug and pulls a pink off-shoulder shirt that stop just before my belly button from her drawer, her smile enormous. "Is this good?"

"Yeah, fine." She tosses me the shirt, and I turn around, take off my current one with my back to Anne, and slip the new one. I pull it down as far as I can and pose for her. "Do I look okay?" I mean for the question to come out casually, but I surprise myself by letting it come out as though I really mean it.

"Yes, you look lovely," Anne assures me, smiling. "But are you sure you want to wear those jeans? Those don't look good for dancing."

I nearly fall over. "What?"

"Didn't I already tell you?" Anne looks genuinely confused. "It's Dance Night at The Three Broomsticks today – James thought it would be fun."

"You kind of failed to mention that little detail to me!" I cry out. Shit!

"Oh, well, I told you now anyway, so you know," Anne says, easily comforted by this statement. "But back to my original question – would a skirt be easier for you to dance in tonight?"

"I'm not dancing, Annie!" I yell at her, beside myself. "I hate dancing! You can't make me!"

"Hush Lily, you know perfectly well that I can make you," Anne says dismissively. "Answer the question."

"I'll be fine in my jeans, because I refuse to dance!" I persist.

"That's what you think, love," Anne says, her grin menacing. "So since you don't want a skirt, shall we go then?"

Without waiting for an answer, she takes my arm and drags me down to the common room, where our group of Gryffindors are conversing loudly together, presumably waiting for the late stragglers. When James sees us, his smile is broad as he approaches us. I do notice though, that unlike other times in the past, the smile is not directed mostly at me; it is mostly for Anne, who could be considered his date for the night.

"Hey girls," he says warmly. "Nice to see you."

"Hey James," Anne replies, completely at ease around him. "Is everyone here?"

"Nearly," James answers. "Sirius had to go to the bathroom – he'll be right down."

"Oh, okay." Anne gestures to me because of a simple lack of anything else to talk about. "Lily's totally psyched to be here, by the way – don't let her face tell you any different."

I smirk at her, but James laughs that laugh I'd admired in the morning and says, "Well, she should be. She looks great and I'll make sure she has a good time."

"Thank you," I say, half sarcastically and half sincerely.

"Don't mention it." He pats my bare shoulder and a few tingles start to take place where his fingers touched me; I don't fret about them though – I'm a bit cold in the shirt I borrowed from Anne, so that's probably the only reason I'm feeling like this. He smiles at me and starts to stroke me shyly, like he's afraid I'll freak out on him the way I might have even last year. I don't freak out, however – I let him touch me until Sirius bounds down the stairs, shouts and whoops for our attention, and distracts James. His hand leaves my skin as he goes towards his best friend, and I watch him guffaw at some remark Sirius made while trying to lead the group out of the portrait hole. He is completely normal; there's nothing uneasy about him and he happily puts his arm around Anne's waist. It has not slipped my notice that Anne is the first girl he's been so comfortable with in many months, and I'm happy for the two of them, but at the same time, I'm just not accustomed to this new James. It feels sudden, that all these changes have occurred, but I'm almost positive that they've been going on all year while I chose not to see them. I walk by myself at the back of the group, thoughts such as these plaguing my mind irresistibly, and I don't know what to make of them. Maybe I'll talk to Anne about it when this repugnant outing is over.

We approach The Three Broomsticks eagerly, animation emitting from nearly all of us, and James can be seen pulling Anne by her arm into the bar. Anne is laughing like a maniac, clearly enjoying herself, but the light in James's eyes is unmistakable; he likes her about as much as she likes him, which is fantastic. My own mood lifts a little at the sight of their obvious romance; Anne may not say it aloud, but her actions and her eyes tell me everything I need to know. I follow the group of chattering, restless Gryffindors in, take a seat on the side of the bar as everyone spreads out to start dancing immediately, and order a firewhiskey. The atmosphere is sticky and dim – the best kind for dancing, but my least favorite type altogether – and I'm already sweating slightly. A high-speed dance song is playing and my adrenaline is attempting to convince me to dance, but as I normally do, I shut it up and accept my drink from the barman. It, like the room, is piping hot, but one sip does me a world of good already and I savor the taste in my mouth, in control of myself for the first time in the night.

Now, I'm not the kind of person one would expect to drink, but I do like firewhiskey. Sometimes, after a hard study session when my brain is dying of stress, I like to come and have a drink to calm down, but it's nothing outrageous; a pint maybe every three or four weeks is about it. I finish about an eighth of my mug in one sip; The Three Broomsticks' special whiskey is simply fantastic.

Contentedly, I observe my peers having fun while feeling myself getting faintly drunker every two minutes that I drink, but after a half hour or so, when I'm starting to wobble a little, Anne joins me, still sober (Anne hates drinking – we're the opposite of our stereotypes that way), and tugs at me to come with her.

"Lily, you're missing all the fun," she tells me. "Have a dance – you don't need a date."

"No thanks," I say with a hiccup.

Anne comes near me, takes a suspicious sniff, and backs away at once. "Have you been drinking, Miss Evans?" she asks me.

"Yeah," I say, gesturing to my mug and swallowing thickly. "Want some?"

"No, I don't," she says firmly. She looks into the glass, cringes, and says, "Well, obviously you've had plenty to drink, so why don't you dance some of this off? Your hangover won't suck as much tomorrow morning."

"Okay," I agree; now that I'm successfully intoxicated to a small extent, I'll say yes to just about anything. Besides, hangovers do suck, and if I can lessen mine, that would be great.

"C'mon." She takes my wrist and lugs me to the main dance floor, where I can make out a few faces, but not many. I do recognize James though; I can hear him ask Anne what's wrong with me.

"She's a bit drunk," Anne tells him. "Lily loves whiskey."

"_Lily Evans loves whiskey_?" He is insultingly astonished. "You're joking."

"No, I'm not," she says. "I got her out here – that should show you she's drunk enough."

James comes over to me and waves a hand in my face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Four, and cut it out; I'm not _that_ drunk," I object, only a couple of my words slurred.

"She'll be fine if she dances a bit," Anne assures James right away.

"Should I dance with her, just to make sure she won't do something stupid in the middle?" I can feel his concerned eyes on me, but I've still got enough of my brain to know that I don't want him anywhere near me.

"I'm fine," I say, stumbling slightly as I take a step away from him. "Really."

James doesn't seem to believe me, but this is good enough for Anne, who engages him in a fast-paced dance the moment she can; his attention diverts somewhat unwillingly from me to her, and I take advantage of her absence to surrender back to the side of the bar. I throw away the last of my firewhiskey though, because if I get too drunk tonight, James will probably take action and Anne will refuse to talk to me until I'm completely sober, which wouldn't be good because I want to know exactly how much she loves James now; I go to the bathroom to work on getting clear-headed. I splash water from the sink all over my face until I feel a bit clearer on where I am and what I'm doing. My brain is immune to some amounts of alcohol, but whatever it's not immune to should hopefully go away soon; I should be all right. I leave the bathroom just as a slow song starts up, so I make haste to pick Anne and James out in the crowd of couples that are cuddling together to dance. I can't see them, but as I'm craning my neck to get a better view, Remus Lupin surprisingly advances towards me and takes my attention away from my search.

"Hey Lily," he says, gracious as always.

"Hey Remus," I say, beaming at him.

"Where have you been?" he asks.

"Drinking," I say wryly. "I've got a weakness for firewhiskey."

He looks disapprovingly at me, making me feel bad for my choices tonight for the first time.

"I'm sorry," I apologize honestly. "I'm just tired; whiskey sort of wakes me up."

"Well, I was going to ask you to dance with me for this song – are you sober?" he asks, though he's more alarmed for my health than anything else.

"Yes, now I am – mostly," I say. "And yes, I'd love to dance; as friends, of course."

Remus rolls his eyes. "You're one of my good friends, Lily; I don't want you to be any more than that."

"Good." I smile and accept his hand. "Shall we dance?"

"We shall." He gives me a short bow of his head and takes me to where the rest of the couples are dancing. His hand is on my waist, but when Remus does it, it somehow doesn't come off as awkwardly romantic; it's a sweetly friendly way. I rather like it – he's so much better than firewhiskey when it comes to calming me down. He's also grown considerably over the year, and is now about seven centimeters taller than me rather than seven centimeters shorter than me – dancing with him is easier than it would have been, say, a year ago even. I tell him so, and he finds it amusing.

"Yes, all of the boys have received a few gifts in the height department lately – so gradually that it feels unexpected," he muses.

"In some ways, but not others," I say. "You've always been a lovely person."

He blushes, but says, "Thank you, Lily."

"You're welcome." We sway in place for a few seconds in silence then, before I say, "You know, Remus, this is the most fun I've had in a while."

"Same here," he says. "James's idea of fun has changed lately, and I liked it a little better when he was wild. It was more natural for him."

"What do you mean?" I'm confused; what is he talking about?

Remus sighs and takes me aside to where I'd been taking refuge previously. "Lily, I'm about to be completely honest with you, and I need you to swear to me that you won't take this any farther than this room – Anne shouldn't even know about it."

"Okay," I say, sensing his urgency. "Okay, yes, I swear no one else will hear about what you have to say but me. What's going on?"

He takes a breath. "Well, you remember that day by the lake last year, don't you?"

"Yes," I say cautiously. "What about it?"

"You know how James has been different since that day?"

"Yes," I say, with inclusive truthfulness this time.

"Do you know why he's been so different?" His tone is tricky to understand, so I look a little more closely at him, trying to decipher the meaning behind it.

"No, I don't," I say.

Remus organizes his thoughts for a moment, but then says, "It's been weird for me as a good friend of James's, talking to him after that day. You kind of brought him to earth that day; in front of everyone, you told him exactly what was on your mind in just a few phrases, and though it didn't matter to you, it did matter to him. He grew up almost overnight, rethinking priorities and being more careful with his words/actions. When school started, I didn't even know him. Instead of being a party animal with dates across the board, he stuck to a couple of girls I knew he didn't like very much anymore and didn't leave the castle as much. Those girls went quickly, and then it was just him again; he talked to me a lot, seeing as Sirius took over the role of resident beast once he stepped down and Peter was his right-hand man, and I knew that he'd gone through a transformation. Just like that. Of course, I wasn't so surprised, because I know he can do anything if he cares enough to, but it was disconcerting nonetheless."

I gulp; I can't believe I'd done all that with just a few hateful words to him on a summer's day. "Really?"

"Yeah," Remus says, resting his elbow on the table. "It's been a very confusing sort of a time for us four Marauders."

"Did he…did he mention me at all?" I ask. I feel strange, inquiring about something like that, but at the same time, I need to know; it's been on my mind lately to ask Remus if James still liked me, because I wasn't sure, and now seems to be the perfect time to bring the matter up.

"No," Remus answers. "Not much. He didn't like talking about you, so I never figured out what exactly you had triggered in him, but nowadays, he's been much better. It's that friend of yours, Anneliese; she's exactly what he needs right now – a girl who can be sensitive and insane at the same time. He likes her a lot, as you can see; he's becoming himself again."

I nod slowly, glad that I pushed Anne on James before; I'd known that they'd do well. "I'm glad that he's okay now," I say genuinely. "He does seem happier without me there in his life." I don't know what possessed me to say that last sentence, but it seems to just fall out of my mouth, and I apprehend with a jolt that it is quite true to the feelings I could never put my finger on properly before. How strange.

Remus smiles gently at me. "He's fond of Anne, but he's got a tender spot left for you too, Lily. He could never dislike you in any way. The challenges you present to him are valuable to him; if I know my best friend at all, I know that he likes a girl who can keep him on his toes, who will never let him have a sane moment even when they're together and supposed to be happy. He wouldn't like it any other way."

I shrug. "Anne is exactly that – they'll be happy together."

"Yes, they will be, for as long as they want to be," Remus says. "And I'm okay with it; James needs to sort a few things out still, but at least he's got someone to help him now."

"Thanks for talking to me, Remus," I say gratefully, perceiving the slightly sudden end of the conversation about our friends both from his tone, body language, and my own need to get to bed to think about things by myself. "And thanks for the dance as well; both were…helpful in their own ways."

"No problem." Remus gives me a hug, and I find myself relaxing in his arms; Remus is the kindest friend-who-happens-to-be-a-boy I've ever had, hands down.

"I think I'm just going to go back to the castle now," I tell him. "I'm not in the party mood at all; I can say I came, but I want nothing more to do with it."

His smile becomes very understanding. "All right; I'll tell Anne where you've gone if she wants to know."

I laugh. "Sounds good. Thanks again."

He waves merrily at me and I exit the building, my mind teeming with the information that was presented to me tonight. While I can't say that The Three Broomsticks plan was much fun, it was at least informative; I've learned more now than I've learned all year in school.

This was everything, really; Remus had given me everything I'd ever wondered about or passively requested clarification on. I'm now well-informed about James's personal revolution after that dratted June day, about how his feelings have grown for Anne, and about his opinion of me. He's formal with me because he has basically created a new foundation for himself; none of the bad memories of me remain with him at this point in time. He's treating me as he would treat anyone else – without any prejudice or past conception. In a way, I'm thankful for my second chance, but at the same time, I hate that he's redoing himself; like Remus, I don't know James anymore. I'd liked knowing everyone in my year, but I'll need to start from scratch with him now, and I don't want to do that; he may have redone his way of life, but I haven't, and I'm not going to be able to be anything more than awkward around that boy, out of sheer cowardliness. I'm afraid of him; I'm afraid of what he already thinks of me, about what he could hold against me, about what he will think of me later. I don't like challenges as much as he does – I may like them, but I can't constantly be in a battlefield like he likes to be. I can't be enough; I will fall eventually, and he'll want to carry on without me. I just don't want to be left behind.

There is one thing Remus didn't mention in the goldmine of information he gave me, however; it is how he feels about me now. Yes, he did say that James could never hate me, but he didn't give me the straight answer I'd been dying to know – whether or not he is still romantically interested in me. I'm not sure why, but it's important for me to know; he spent so much of his time chasing after me, but after all of his efforts and my allowing it to become a constant in my life, he's really not going to tell me what he thinks of me? I'm burning to know – I know his history, but now I want the present, and somehow, without rowing, I'll need to get it. Maybe I'll ask Anne to ask him for me, I don't know. For now though, I have a mission and some background details to help me out, which is more than I expected to have.

I open the front doors of the castle with a certain triumph flowing through me; I am going to figure this issue with James Potter out once and for all in the next couple of weeks. He may have entered my life again kind of unexpectedly, but now, I'm finally one step ahead, and I'm going to use that to my own benefit; if I find that he doesn't like me still, I'll back off and never speak to him again – done. If he does like me…well, I know he doesn't like me, since he likes Anne, so I don't even have to worry about it. This fairytale can still work out; Anne will still get her prince, and that prince is no longer preoccupied by the random stepsister that he shouldn't have noticed in the first place. Could anything be better? I don't think so.

With a spring in my step, I leap up the main stairs and make my way eagerly to the Gryffindor common room; I have some new plans I need to get down to making.

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**A/N: So there you go; that's why James is acting so weird. :P The aftermath of this chapter will, of course, be further discussed in the next chapter, and maybe we may have another run-in with James; I'm not sure yet. But what I ****am**** sure about, however, is that you will review because you're a lovely, lovely person, and that the next chapter shall be up shortly. :)**


	6. Of Loving James Potter

**A/N: This chapter is a short little filler thing, but I think it's fairly important, so you can just read and review now. :P

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On Saturday morning, the day after the group disaster at The Three Broomsticks, I wake up very, very slowly at about quarter to one with a throbbing headache.

The first thing I notice when my eyes open is that the dormitory is pretty much empty; everyone must be down at lunch by now. I've never slept so late before, and I'm finding it's rather nice to; I feel refreshed, despite the dull pain in my skull – much better than I have been in months. I take a few minutes to lie there in my blankets, warm and bemused, letting my mind rejuvenate at its own leisurely pace, and I find that it's rather good for me. I may start doing it more often now – resting seems to have a very positive effect on me. It seems like an obvious verity, but I rarely get to sleep past five or six in the morning; I'm new to the joys of sleeping late.

Pleased with this revelation, I yawn and get out of bed to get dressed and find Anne – I want to take today easy and just kick back to relax with my best friend. The memories of the things I'd found out and decided to take action on are coming back to me, but right now, I don't particularly want to think about them – I want to eat chocolate, maybe have another whiskey, and talk to Anne, nothing else. I'll mess with Anne's love life later – tomorrow, perhaps, but Monday for sure. Today is going to be _mine_.

When I've successfully woken up and gotten ready, I go down to the Great Hall for a late lunch, and I look around for Anne. I can't find her at all, however; I look on both sides of the table, but she is nowhere to be seen. Wonderful. I suppose I'll just grab something and go, in that case – I'm not in the mood for much company anyway. With a sigh, I walk to the Gryffindor table, select a sandwich from one of the baskets near the middle, and take a seat in the first open spot to nibble at it, not especially interested in what I'm doing or eating. I vaguely wonder where Anne is; it's not like her to skip lunch, her favorite meal in the day. Maybe she's already had it, but I doubt that she has; Anne's not one to eat lunch before at least one thirty, and it's about a quarter to two by now. How weird.

When I finish my sandwich – which admittedly doesn't take very long because I don't really taste what I put in my mouth – I get up and leave the Great Hall, my mind coming out with a list of places where Anne might be and if she's possibly with James, but as I make my way out, I brilliantly bump right into someone. Again. I have a half-formed apology already about to be spoken, but it gets caught in the back of my throat when I see that it's James Potter himself who I walked into – a sense of déjà vu sweeps over me and renders me speechless, like the day before. I had _not_ expected something like this so early in my day.

James, unlike me, is rather entertained by this phenomenon rather than mortified out of his mind. "Well, Lily, today I am forced to conclude that you are hideously clumsy – this is the second time you've bumped into me in, like, three days."

I try to laugh it off, but I'm so embarrassed that I'm not sure how genuine my effort looks. "I'm sorry, James; I was just…never mind." I was about to say 'I was just thinking about how you were probably with my best friend, who is conveniently in love with you right now,' but I can't just _say_ that to someone; it's simply not done. I didn't even say that when I was a stupid eleven year old who said whatever came to her mind.

James, though, is intrigued by uncharacteristically nervous-child-like behavior, and stops me to ask, "No, what were you going to say?"

"Nothing really," I lie.

"You can tell me anything," he says to me, his eyes earnest and clear, yet full of infinite depth at the same time. I don't know why, but when I hear this, something in me clenches, yet becomes euphoric and I don't get it; what the bloody hell is going on?!

"I can?" I decide to inquire.

"Of course," James says, giving me a surprisingly sweet smile.

"Really?" I let my own smile come out slightly; he really will let me say whatever I want around him? That's sweet – it's something the old James would have said, and anything (yes, including his pompousness) from that boy I used to know is a welcome thing for me.

"Well, yes." James looks confused. "I'm a pretty open person – anyone can tell me anything, and of course, that includes you too."

Oh; well, in that case, screw what I thought before.

Probably seeing my face fall a little, he queries with concern, "What?"

"Nothing," I say at once. "Nothing, nothing, nothing; nothing at all!" I clear my throat. "Excuse me; I need to leave – I'm looking for Anne."

"She just went upstairs to look for you," James tells me promptly. "But Lily, can't you tell me what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong," I insist. "I will see you _later,_ James." I try to push past him to leave, and I don't meet any resistance – I leave him there while I escape up to the Gryffindor common room, my heart pumping blood four times its normal rate. Two somewhat-civil and fully bewildering conversations with James Potter in just a few days! This has been a very bizarre week so far.

I run up to the common room, where James had said Anne was, but while I go and try to shake off the conversation I'd just had at the same time, I find that I can't; every single word James Potter has said to me over these two or three days can't seem to find its way out of my head like it should. His incomprehensible personality exchange from clown to gentleman is as baffling to me now as it was when I first witnessed it, and it seems that some thought of him, whether it's positive or negative, has snuggled into a part of my brain and gotten too comfortable there, making me attend to it all the time. It can't be right, because he is Anne's boyfriend and my ex-enemy, but I suppose I have to think about him to _some_ extent; I'm playing Cupid for him after all, aren't I? So maybe it's not such a bad thing – I can sort of get to know this new James Potter so that I can make sure he and Anne get along the best they can. I think I can live with that – it's a two-birds-with-a-single-stone kind of a deal, isn't it?

I enter the common room, my head still full of James and Anne, when I find Anne herself, looking wildly around for me. When she sees me cross the threshold of the portrait hole, she jumps right over to me, her eyes alight with delight.

"Lily! Oh my goodness, I've been searching for you _everywhere_; where have you been?" she asks me, the words spilling out of her mouth at a hundred miles an hour.

"I slept until twelve forty-five today," I confess. "Then I went to lunch and came back in here right now. Where have _you_ been?" I know she's been with James, but I want to know about the event in her words rather than concluding it in my own.

"Out with James," she says promptly, her tone ecstatic. "Lils, I can say now, with full honesty, that I am absolutely in love with that boy!"

The first real beam I've made in a while comes to my face when I hear this; I'm happier for her than I can say. "Annie, good for you!" I hugged her tightly and we bounced in place together, squealing incoherently together like a couple of thirteen-year-olds, until I regain a hold over myself and ask her, "So, what changed your mind all of a sudden? Yesterday, you were Miss Denial shooting off her big mouth every time James's name was mentioned."

"Yeah, I know, but today, James found me when I was kind of hanging around here, and he offered to take me out for a bit of coffee. We went, and he was just so _cute_, and so _funny_, and so _honest_ with me that I dunno…I couldn't stop _staring_ at him and I felt so _weird_, but so _right_ at the same time. He's just so _lovely_, Lily; I can't help myself!"

"By the percentage of stressed adjectives in those few sentences, I think I can see that I have been right this entire time," I summarize smugly. "I _told_ you that it would work out, Anne! You didn't believe me, but I knew it!" I do a triumphant little twirl for her. "This is why we listen to me, Anne; I'm _always_ right."

"No you're not," Anne objects.

"Well, no, but I'm right most of the time, and this was one of those times," I amend, refusing to let my rapture down. "Anne, you're in love again! Yay!"

"I have a pretty good feeling for James," she says, smiling faintly at my zeal. "He's such a sweetie – and he's a hot athlete on top of that. I don't know why you hated him so much to start with."

I sigh very, very softly, but I try to hide it. "It's complicated, Annie," I tell her. "But right now, we're not focusing on me – we're focusing on you and what you're going to do now! Did you tell him you liked him? Did you kiss him?"

"Yes, I did," Anne admits bashfully, her cheeks as red as I've ever seen them. I'm a bit astonished by this change in her – Anne has never been so keen on a crush since her first one in second year. She's always happier and less sarcastic than usual when she's in love, but this is different; I wonder how James acts around her, if this is what he causes.

"Yes you said you liked him or yes you kissed him?" I demand all the same.

"Yes, I kissed him," she says, trying and failing to sound as though this didn't mean the world to her. "It was just a quick one though."

"On his cheek or his lips?" I ask next.

"His lips," Anne clarifies; her smile couldn't be any bigger. "And he seemed to like it too. I obviously did."

I hug Anne again. "I'm so, so, so pleased for you!"

"I know!" She throws her arms around me too. "Thank _you_ for forcing me to go out with him; I never would have found out how adorable he was if you hadn't. I owe you big time; if you like any guy, any guy at all, just say the word and I will have him all over you like obnoxious is on Sirius Black."

I giggle and say, "I won't need any love problems any time soon, but when I do, I'll let you know, of course. But you're welcome – all you have to do to repay me is to just let this work out the way you and I know it should."

"I can do that," Anne chirps. "I like James, Lil; I may carry this thing between us for a little while longer than I usually do with other people."

"You should," I say. "You two make an awesome, awesome couple. I know that you guys are going to be happy together, you wait and see."

Anne smiles genuinely at me and puts her hand on my shoulder. "Thanks Lily. Truly. What would I do without you?"

"Probably bumble along from relationship to relationship, pick an insidious guy along the way, marry him, divorce him, and then do the cycle over and over again," I predict wisely. "You need me, Annie, because your taste in guys is normally awful if I don't do it for you."

"You're right," Anne muses. "Of course. I do pick guys that are bad for me."

I nod. "You do. This one, however, is a good one for you, so hold him tight and don't let him go."

"'Kay." Anne contemplates something for a moment, and then offers, "I'm in the mood for some celebratory chocolate. Do you want to come with me to Honeydukes?"

"Sure," I agree. "Let's go!"

With this, I take her wrist and run her out of the portrait hole again and to the front door, both of us laughing and screaming together; we do something like this every time Anne gets a new boyfriend, but today, we are especially cheerful because it's a guy I actually approve of. I know she and James are going to do well together; besides, this way, now I don't have to work on matchmaking! Everything's already fallen into place without my being too heavily involved; my only job now is to baby-sit the relationship and make sure that it keeps going rather than falling apart. It shouldn't be hard, since Anne is officially nuts for him, but I'll be sure to keep my watchful eye over them anyway, just in case.

As we chase each other down the pebbly path to the little village, I am, for the first time, completely at ease; everything's going right, and I can take a back seat for once! Can this be _any_ better? Cinderella has finally found her prince and everything's perfect in fairytale land now – at long last, I think it's safe to say that we are legitimately entering the realms of that glittery happy ending I knew Anne was destined to reach.

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**A/N: No, of course we're not at that happy ending yet!! Another update should be on its way soon; I think that there are between 13 and 15 chapters for this story, at this point. And, better, since you've now done the reading part, you're free to do the reviewing part! Go ahead, then; I'll be waiting for your comments. :P**


	7. Of Potions and James Potter

**A/N: This chapter, unlike the last one, has lots and lots of James in it, so you now have tons of incentive to both read AND review! You must be excited beyond your wildest dreams! I know I am; this story is such fun. :P

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Today, Monday morning, the first rational thought to come to me is not one about breakfast and classes, like it is normally; it is that today, I can finally see how Anne acts around James Potter in public.

It's a stupid (and a tad obsessive) thought to have so early in the morning, but honestly, the romance between Anne and James is the only interesting thing going on around me right now. I can't help but be consumed by it – even though it was obviously meant to be, I still can't believe it worked out so smoothly. It's like one of those Muggle soap operas that Anne makes fun of me for watching over the mind-numbing summer holidays I must endure every year – when everything's going right, I'm ravenous for the next episode because when things are going right is when things go wrong, but when things are going wrong, I'm still ravenous because I want to see it all get resolved. It's an endless cycle of starvation for the next part of the story, and even when it gets sappy and annoying, it's still addictive. I see Anne's love story with James as a real-life version of the programs I watch, except it is considerably better, because with her, no one's written out her part for her already – everything happens by the moment according to Anne herself, and nothing is for certain. How much more could I possibly want?

I wake up Anne, as is part of our morning rituals, and together, we get ready, chattering away about how hideous our pile of homework probably is today. I don't mention James myself, since I want Anne to bring him up first, and she rewards me for my patience by casually stating as we leave the dormitory for breakfast, "I told James that I'd meet him right now; is that okay with you?"

"That's fine," I say brightly. "That's totally fine; meet me in Transfiguration, all right?"

"Sure thing, Lily!" Anne gives me a brief hug. "You're fantastic. We're probably going to have breakfast together, so do you want to eat with us?"

"Not really," I admit. "It would be rather awkward."

"Right," she says regretfully, catching on. "Okay then. I'll see you in Transfiguration then, as you said." I wave at her, so she gives me a thump on the back and bounces off, obviously seeking the company of James. I smile after her childishly effervescent form – Anne has the capacity of being both an adult and a little kid simultaneously, and it's this about her that I love so much.

I wander off into the Great Hall, feeling pretty hungry now that my contentment is satisfied and my stomach isn't, and I eat several slices of toast with strawberry jam – three more than usual, since I simply feel like eating more today. I eat even more than usual (I can just hear Anne questioning if that's even possible) when I'm anxious or if I'm frazzled, which accounts for my annual weight gain before final exams, and this occasion definitely goes along the lines of frazzled and anxious. I take an extra fourth toast to add to my normal two, just for the hell of it; I need a reason to hog the jam.

When I'm finished gorging myself stupid, I make my way down to Transfiguration slightly early, my tummy feeling quite sick by this point, and I feel like I can skip; Anne and James getting together at last, along with strawberry jam (which is my favorite), make me happier than I can express intelligently. It feels as though nothing can be wrong with life; I open the door to the classroom with little patience and no concealment for my excitement, when I stop short.

Why? Because, in the back of the empty room, sit Anne and James on the counter, and they are kissing.

Well, _kissing_ would be an understatement; to be politically correct, I'd have to say that they are fully _snogging_.

I clear my throat to announce my presence, and immediately, they break apart and look at me – Anne is slightly uncomfortable, but James is outright discomfited. Paying no mind to this though, I come up to Anne and slyly ask her, "So…are things going well for you two?"

"Yeah, they are," Anne says, laughing and pushing me. "Right, Potter?"

"Of course, Weathers," he mumbles back, his cheeks a deep pink still. As I observe this, I realize with a jolt that this is the first time in five and a half years I've ever seen James Potter – _the_ James Potter – ever blush in front of me. Normal people blush, obviously, but not _James_; James is the almighty _Marauder_, and a _Marauder_ never blushes, no _sir_, it's simply out of the question. I feel the old, petty impulse to point this out – that he's had so many girlfriends I've seen him kiss, that he never blushes after he's been caught kissing one – but I force myself to get rid of it and say, "It's not a bad thing, James. It's just me."

James says nothing, but mutters to Anne, "I need to see Remus. Excuse me." He kisses her quickly and passes by me, determinedly not looking at me; the moment he's safely out of the room, Anne sighs, seeming to be overwhelmed.

"You know how to pick your times, Lils," she says.

"I didn't know – I'm sorry," I say apologetically. "But you're at the snogging point now? You're getting pretty serious."

"Yeah, isn't it great?" Anne says excitedly. "You know me, I like to go fast, but James is fine with going my speed and I love that. He's so flexible."

"Wonderful, another person to shove the idea that James is perfect down my throat," I say bleakly.

"What?" Anne looks confused. "He's as close to perfect as you can get. I mean, he can have _any_ girl under the sun because he's so amazing; all he has to do is pick her."

"I suppose you're the girl then," I say. "He's picked you. I haven't seen him snog someone like that since fourth year."

"Oh, Candace?" Anne nods understandingly. "Yeah, I remember her. They were nuts for each other; too bad she transferred to Beauxbatons."

We sigh in unison together; Candace Wellows had been a girl who had gone to Hogwarts until the start of fifth year, when her mother decided to move to France and put her into the Beauxbatons Academy. James had gone out with her for about a year before that, and had gone through a bit of a depression when she left; he seemed to have really loved her. Of course, at that time, I had dismissed his sadness for melodramatics to gain sympathy, claiming that he was incapable of sentimental thought, but now, I am beginning to grasp how much she might have meant to him at the time as I see him react the same way with a girl I know he likes. That may be part of the mystery behind James though – there are so many things I never knew or empathized with in him, and now that I'm only just starting to see what they are and what they signify, I feel like I've missed too much. It's these past few, eventful days that I've actually started to question how well I really knew the man behind the boyish face of James Potter, and the answers I'm getting are starting to scare me.

Anne seems to be in her own train of thought as well after our unfinished conversation (probably having to do with James as well) and I notice that she's playing with her hair, her eyes pensive. She does like him, I think tenderly; she really does. She knows him, since he has brought her in while shutting me out, but that's okay; I had my chance too, and I missed it while she took it. I'm happy for Anne and the peace she's found with him – there's no doubt about it – and maybe, since I'll have to associate with James now more than ever, he'll be able to find a way of forgiving me for the past five years. He might not, but then again, he might; we'll just have to see.

The bell rings now, shattering our concentration, and I sit in my seat with Anne, smiling at her. She smiles back at me, and I squeeze her hand in mine; it's my silent way of telling her before class starts that I'm happy for her and I'm behind her one hundred percent. Her hand stays limp, but it's her way of saying that she's grateful for my support, and she trusts me. That trust is mutual, and she knows it – some friends may get jealous of each other when they get boyfriends or something like that, but Anne and I aren't anything like that. Our trust is unconditional no matter who we're with at the time or what we're going through in life, and Anne's new relationship is just living proof of that we can get through anything.

**&&&**

By the time last period Potions comes around, Anne and I are feeling deceased.

It's been a long day, and we're both exhausted. Anne still has the weekend blues, wishing she was back in bed again, and I am simply not in the mood to work today. I'm sleepy, and now that I have seen what I wanted to see in the morning, I don't have any reason to be in class anymore. Oh well; it's the last class of the day – I'll just have to live through this one, do my homework, and then I go to bed early. Potions is also my best subject, so maybe it'll be more bearable today, especially because Professor Slughorn particularly favors me out of our year.

Concurrently, the two of us step through the door, feeling as though we've walked great distances when, in fact, this is the shortest expanse we walked all day. Anne sinks into her seat and I sink into mine, both of us letting our heads down on our tables, exhausted.

"Why do I feel as though I'm going to die?" Anne asks me tiredly, her sentence punctuated by a few yawns.

"If I knew, I'd fix it," I respond with a moan.

"Well, at least on the plus side, we can see James this period," Anne says. This does appear to brighten her up a little bit, but not enough to bring total light behind her now-lifeless electric blue eyes.

"Yippee," I say moodily.

"What's he done this time?" Anne inquires.

"Nothing," I say with a sigh. "I'm just worn-out and I don't want to be here. It has nothing personal against James."

"Amen to that." Anne picks up her cauldron and pretends to be setting it up as Professor Slughorn waddles into the room, sickeningly jovial as usual.

"Miss Evans! Miss Weathers!" he exclaims upon seeing us. "Lovely to see you, m'dears! How are you?"

"Lovely," Anne snaps; she likes Professor Slughorn about as much as she likes Professor Bruin in Muggle Studies.

Oblivious to Anne's hostility, Slughorn says, "Glad to hear it! How about you, Miss Evans?"

"Not good," I admit. "I'm ready to throw in the towel right now – I'm so, so sleepy."

He looks sympathetically at me. "You work so hard, m'dear, can anyone blame you? But you're nearly done with the day, and I can't wait to see what you're going to make for me today!"

I smile wryly; it's hard to be weepy when Professor Slughorn is in the room. He's so enthusiastic about me and believes in me so much that I decide, just because I have a soft spot for him, I will try today, just for him. I tell him so, and he walks away pleased, but Anne is holding back giggles.

"That was a good save," she says through her chortles.

"No, I was serious," I say. "I'll try today."

Anne shorts. "Go ahead – have fun. I don't want to though."

I shrug. "Have patience, Annie; just endure another hour and you can go to bed again."

"I like the concept of bed, but I don't like the concept of enduring right now," Anne tells me. "But I'll do it – for you, for James. Just help me a little more today than you do every other day, okay?"

"Sure," I agree. "I know Potions isn't your best subject."

Anne laughs, but says, "I know, I'm awful at it."

I'm about to say something, but the usual wave of close-to-late sixth years rushes in, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter among them. They're laughing and talking to one another, as usual, and sit together at their Marauder table, and Anne's eyes follow them with every step they take, no longer paying me any heed; after all, anything I have to say on the subject of Potions is going to be boring compared to something glorious James Potter does on the side with his friends, right? Apparently, that's the case – I simply go back to my textbook, faking reading the random page I'm on. Maybe when it's time to disperse to get the day's work done, I'll talk to Remus.

The bell rings, and Slughorn claps his porky hands together, joyful as ever. "Good afternoon!" he greets us.

He gets no response.

Undaunted, he tries again and asks, "How are you all doing today?"

A few moans.

"Ready to make a potion?"

Silence again.

"How about I just give you the instructions and you can get started?"

Nothing. Again.

Annoyed, Slughorn says, "You're rather unresponsive today, aren't you lot?"

"It's Monday," James explains loudly.

When he says this, the class wakes up from its stupor long enough to grunt their approval. Anne giggles; she finds any half-baked cynical remark from James's mouth hilarious, and I would criticize her for it, but a disheartening number of people think the same way, which means I can't say anything. Besides, the way she looks at him is so affectionate and so uncharacteristically sweet for her that I can't find the heart to poke fun at her the way I want to.

By now, Slughorn has already launched into speech about how difficult our work is today, but I'm not really listening to him – I'm too busy thinking about Anne and James. A quick look around the room does confirm that I'm not the only one who's spacing out, but I still can't believe how easily I get sucked into thoughts about my friend and her boyfriend; it's kind of sad, how much _I'm_ thinking about them – _me_, a girl who doesn't have really anything to do with the situation. I would try to think of an argument about why it's a good thing that I'm paying so much attention, but right now, I can not only come up with a grand total of zero good theories, I don't even feel like thinking too much. I want to go to bed, but I know I can't until I provide Professor Slughorn with a sample of the potion he's thankfully written on the board (Draught of Peace), so I get started on it with a heavy exhale; maybe if I don't think about it, the time will breeze on by and I can take a nap before doing my work for the night.

The moment I hear Slughorn give the word, I get started and do what I'm supposed to do, ignoring the chatter going on around me as always, and make sure I'm careful to get all the ingredients in the right way; next to me though, Anne is struggling. Big time. Within the first ten minutes, she's got an enormous mess of angry, spitting bubbles in her cauldron, and she keeps squealing as random sparks come up out of her concoction – she's made some very simple errors, but they come out to be a disaster at the end, since the Draught of Peace is a very fiddly potion to make. I smirk as Anne swears at her cauldron and ask, "Do you want some help?"

"YES!" she bursts out, swatting a few droplets of her neon orange creation from her shoulder. "Please!"

I take out a rat spleen from my spares pile and hand it to her. "Drop that in there and it'll stop making fireworks," I order her.

Obediently, Anne drops the rat spleen into her potion and instantly, it calms down and becomes just a mess of orange rather than a mess of orange that's trying to kill her. This fills her with new strength, and she cries out, "You're a genius! Now can you help me turn it into the silver it's supposed to be?" She peers into her cauldron again with distaste. "Slughorn won't like it if it's orange."

I laugh gently and give her some daisy roots. "Slice these and put half of them in," I tell her. "When you're done, add in a moonstone, let it mix for seven and a half minutes, stir it in a clockwise direction precisely six times, then four times in a counterclockwise direction, add in a few beetles for good luck, and then finish off with a sprig of peppermint; that should put your potion where it needs to be."

"Right-o," Anne says, saluting me as she scrambles back to her work. "Thanks, Lil; you're a life-saver."

I smile modestly. "Well, if you say so…" I go back to my own potion, which is half-finished, highly pleased; I love being able to fix Anne's potions because not only do I help a friend in need, I increase my own knowledge of how to avert disaster, which is always a handy thing to have. Though I have faith in Anne's ability to listen to directions provided by someone that isn't a teacher she hates, I do keep checking periodically at Anne's progress as well as my own, so that we don't get another calamity in her cauldron. She's doing well, fortunately, so I stop glancing nervously at her every thirty seconds and gradually lose myself in the complexity of my assignment. Potions can be exciting sometimes, making it perfect for last period blues, and I'm actually awake again – that should say something for the subject.

However, when I'm nearly done, I hear a piercing hiss go off from the Marauder table; many teenage heads turn to see the source of the noise, and I see that James's potion has spilled to the table and has burned a hole right through it. James is standing over the mess, surprised that it has occurred, while Sirius and Peter are laughing their heads off and Remus is still shell-shocked; it's a typical scene. Anne is the first to laugh, and the whole class follows her example, laughing uncontrollably at the sight of Slughorn yelping and shuffle up to their table, asking "what the 'ell just happened here" as he always does. James chuckles ruefully and says, "Sorry, Professor. I wasn't paying attention."

"Well, that much is obvious," Slughorn sputters, waving his wand to clean the mess. "Be more careful next time, Mr. Potter?"

"I'll try my best," he says, his smile indicating a private amusement at the day's event.

"Yeah, Prongs, be careful next time you're staring at the girls' table and not seeing what you're putting into your mixture," Sirius says, roaring with laughter as he high-fives Peter.

James's cheeks become oh-so-slightly pink for the second time today, and he says, "I wasn't staring at the girls."

"You were and you know it," Peter adds in. Sirius shoots him a look of approval, which he appears to enjoy, and Remus rolls his eyes.

"Thank you, boys," Slughorn says shortly, giving each Marauder a dirty look. "Mr. Potter, might I suggest asking someone who knows what they are doing to help you with your potion-making?"

"Yes, professor," James says dutifully, though his eyes have some of the mischievous light that used to dominate them years ago.

Slughorn goes back to his desk, muttering something or another about how inattentive teenagers are, and Anne hops right up to give James a compassionate hug. "Don't worry," she says from over his shoulder. "You're not _that_ bad at Potions."

"I hate the Draught of Peace," James says, glancing irately at his table with the cauldron and his friends, who are now also back on task – Remus is helping Peter and Sirius is busy glaring at his potion, which is stubbornly pale blue rather than silver. "Anne, are you any good at it? Can you help me?"

"Nope," Anne says bluntly. "My potion-making isn't worth shit; if it wasn't for Lily, I wouldn't be able to pass this class."

"I can help you, if you'd like," I offer without thinking. The moment I realize what I said though, I wish I hadn't spoken at all – I've been working to avoid James, and now here I am, volunteering to help in Potions?! Being tired is obviously not a good trait in a class where I need to be careful with what I say and do.

"Could you?" James's eyes flicker hopefully in my direction.

"Yes, of course she could!" Anne answers for me before I can even open my mouth to decline, pushing him towards me. "C'mon, bring your cauldron over here and she'll tell you exactly what to do."

I have no more choice in the matter, so James brings the cauldron and sets up next to me. "I'm doomed with this potion," he tells us conversationally as he prepares. "I'm awful at it; I can do everything except this."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I say. "But maybe you'll get it right this time." Why am I being so polite?! Talking to him is as easy as Anne had said it would be; how is it that she's right?! She can't be – I've had such a history with James Potter, full of trauma, misery, and hatred – yet she is, because it's like talking to Remus; relaxed and second-nature. What the hell does this mean now? James is so damn vexing.

"I need a miracle to pass this assignment," James says, gazing woefully at his smoldering, sorry liquid; it's colored deep aqua with lime green flecks.

"Well, then a miracle has come to you in the form of Lily Evans," Anne chirps, poking me painfully in the arm.

James spreads out his materials, laughs, and says teasingly, "Come, Miracle; guide me."

Anne laughs, and even I let out a little giggle as I select his tumbleweed grass pouch. "Put two pinches of this in first," I say. "It'll get the color to white."

Like a loyal puppy, he takes a pinch of grass, drops it in, and does it again. Instantaneously, the potion looks like creamy vanilla. James gapes at it in wonderment and then gapes at me with the same wonderment.

"You _are_ a miracle," he says rather flatteringly.

I blush; I rather like being a miracle in James's eyes, though I'm not sure why. "Erm…now you need to put in the back end of a grasshopper," I say distractedly.

Seeming to hang on my every word, James searched for a grasshopper while Anne thumped my back proudly. "You're so smart," she says admiringly.

"You are," James agrees, victoriously pulling out a grasshopper. "Thanks so much, Ev- I mean, Lily."

"Thank _you_ for not using my last name," I tell him, my tone surprisingly approving. "Now put in three moonstones and you should be done."

"Already?" James is astonished.

"Yeah; I gave you the shortcut way," I clarify. "Just do it."

"Of course." James scrambles up from his spot to get the moonstones from the student's store cupboard nearby, and Anne smiles hugely at me.

"Lily, I'm so proud of you! You're helping James without calling him names!" she says joyfully, hugging me.

"Yes, well…" My voice trails off; I have not only failed to think of a good reason why I think about James so much, I can't even think of a good reason as to why I'm being nice to him! I must be going mad.

"No, it's a good thing," Anne reassures me. "I mean, did you see how happy he was when you treated him rationally just now? He still cares about you; he likes to be in your good books."

"He doesn't care about me," I say.

"Well, maybe not romantically, but he does care for you as a lovely girl who is my best friend," Anne amends, grinning at me.

I'm about to say something else – I don't even know what about – when James returns from the cupboard with his moonstones. "Do I need to crush them or something?" he asks me.

"No, just put them in as they are," I say.

"Right," he says. He follows my directions and allows the rocks to fall into his cauldron. Within a few seconds, the liquid within it is silvery and nearly transparent – the Draught of Peace, perfectly created. Anne cheers, but James whoops with ecstasy – I can't help but smile at his reaction. His hazel eyes are sparkling, and for whatever reason, I'm somewhat hypnotized by them and their sheer innocence; no matter how much he's matured, James is always going to have a childish streak in him. It's not so bad now though; now, it's kind of cute. I find myself half-smiling unconsciously at him as he hugs Anne tightly in celebration – where was _this_ James when I was starting to form opinions about the people in my year when I was eleven?

However, when Anne has been hugged to oblivion, it's my turn – James comes to me and throws his arms around my neck. I'm a little shorter than he is, but he has no problem with crushing me against his chest and saying, "Thanks so much, Lily; I completely owe you."

"We both do," Anne tells him, giggling.

"It's really no problem," I say from over his shoulder. My hands are at my side right now, but hesitantly, I start to move them to his shoulders. He welcomes it and brings me in even closer (if it's possible) and this wave of warmth floods through me; I'm disconcerted. What is it? Why is it there? Better yet, why did it come from _James Potter_, of all people?

He lets go of me, unaware of the alarm bells going on in my system, and beams at me. "I'm forever in your debt already, but I have a feeling I'm going to need your help in the essay on this potion; do you think you could spare me some time in the evening to make sure I've done it right?"

Yes, he will definitely need help on his essay; with every new potion we create, Professor Slughorn requests for us to, by the end of two weeks, write an essay on the importance of the ingredients and compositions, which he grades harshly, and it's necessary to know the potion well in order to do a good job. James is doomed with his current knowledge, and I can't let him fail; that's why I say, "Yes, I think I can. When you do you plan to work on it?"

"Probably next Wednesday, two nights from now," James answers. "I'm a bit booked with Quidditch practice and all that. Is that all right with you?"

"Yes, that's fine," I say. "Just find me in the library that day any time; I'll probably be there helping Anne with hers too."

"I always need help on my essays," Anne chimes in proudly. "You can join our little study party!"

James gives her a smile, which widens her own, and then looks back to me. "Are you sure you're okay with this? I'm not intruding on anything?"

"No, of course not," I say, tripping over my words just a little bit.

"I'd ask Remus, like I normally do, but Sirius isn't any better at the potion than I am, and of course, Peter's going to want help, so he can't possibly take care of me too," he explains. "Remus is my usual savior."

"I see," I say. "Well, though Remus could probably do it better than I could, I'll try my best."

"Thanks, Lily." He thumps my back like Anne and I do to each other, grinning. "You really are a miracle."

I have no response to this, so James turns to Anne, pats her shoulder, and then goes to his own table, where Sirius is howling over how horrid the Draught of Peace is, which leaves Anne to explode for me.

"I can't believe you're going to extend a hand of assistance to James!" she squeals, thrilled. "You would normally never even _dream_ about doing this! You'd hit me for even suggesting it!"

"I know, but since he's your boyfriend, I'm just trying to be a little nicer to him," I admit. "I figured that since he's also hopeless at Potions, I might as well tutor him a little in it, right?"

"Oh, I'm so proud of you!" She falls on me in yet one more rib-crushing hug. "This is a huge step for you, Lils!"

"Yes, it is, and I'd love to further discuss it with you, but first, you must let me go so that I can bloody _breathe_!" I choke out.

"Sorry," Anne says, liberating me swiftly.

"What is it with you and James and hugging me hard these days?" I wonder aloud.

Anne laughs. "I don't know, but what I do know is that you've got about ten minutes to get that masterpiece of yours to Slughorn's desk – step to it."

"Really? Damn," I say, taking a flask and letting a sampling of the Draught of Peace fill it up. It's a little less than my usual standards, but I'm still distracted by the rest of the period and am not in the mood to perfect it. I just agreed to help James Potter with his Potions essay! I'm merely unable to comprehend this fact; how did it happen? What possessed me to say the words to make it happen? It's not even fair – how am I supposed to talk to him?! At the very least, I have a week and a half to think about it, which is good, but I am simply in shock.

The bell rings, dismissing me to go to bed if I want to, and the inevitable rush to speed-deliver potions and flee the room occurs, but I walk at a snail's pace to Professor Slughorn's desk, my mind crammed with things that can go wrong and ways to possibly avoid them. Anne offers to take my flask for me, and I let her, taking my time to pack up my books. I'm so screwed; that's one recurring thought constantly running through my head.

At last, we leave the room after saying good-bye to Slughorn (something I did but Anne didn't); Anne tries to talk to me, but I don't respond because I have nothing to say. My thoughts are passive and stay restricted in my head, because I'm confused. I don't know why James is so dominantly stuck in my head these days, especially today. His smile, our hug, his words…it's all replaying constantly in my mind, like a catchy beat constantly repeated by a broken record, and I can't seem to get rid of it. Again, I ask myself, what does it mean? Why is it happening? It would also be nice to know simply what the hell it is. I'm getting no answers though, and I don't know what or who to turn to. Is there a cure for whatever peculiar things my brain is doing with that boy?

The strangest thing out of the many I have to choose from this horrid ordeal, I conclude as Anne and I wordlessly get onto the seventh floor to find our portrait hole, is probably the sheer change in my thinking patterns; I mean, my homework was my life a week back, but now, it's a full-time James Potter show – just like that, out of the blue, however anyone wants to put it.

Anne has been predicting this for years, and it has happened at last – I have formally lost my mind.

* * *

**A/N: Haha, the reason behind her losing her mind is very simple, of course, but Lily doesn't know that yet. :P I am planning on writing about this Potions appointment obviously; however, I do have a couple of middle chapters that I want to do as well. To cap it off, I also have hideous finals coming up, so chapters may be a little slow in coming up because I need to study and there's only so much I am allowed to procrastinate. So I hope you liked this long chapter, and will review! Those are always lovely, and I'd love to hear from you. :)  
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	8. Of James Potter and his Perfect Girl

**A/N: Okay, this chapter's going to feel like it has nothing but useless filler in it, which it pretty much does, but read it anyway for the end – it's the foundation for the period of uncertainty that will carry us to the happy ending of this story in a few chapters. Mmkay? Oh, and don't forget to review; I always say that, but most of you don't listen to me. xD

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**

It's Thursday night, and as always, I am forced to spend it in the common room with Anne, struggling with her on her Muggle Studies homework.

Like the last time, my eyes are closing and I can hear my bed calling out my name, but Anne isn't about to let me go. This time, she has to write an essay with three reasons why buses are better than Apparition, and she can't think of a single decent reason as to why Apparition shouldn't be used.

"Annie, _please_ just be agreeable with me, I want to go to sleep," I plead. "Just say that buses are better because Apparition is dangerous, difficult, and only usable for when you're of age."

"It's fun when things are dangerous, nothing's hard when you care enough, and there's always Side-Along Apparition," Anne insists. "I can't use those reasons, Lily!"

"Just for the sake of the essay, use them," I say exasperatedly. "Sound convincing and Professor Bruin will accept it! I'll get on my knees and beg you if I have to; write goddamn essay and let me go up to bed."

"I need reasons," Anne whines.

"I gave you reasons!"

"Yes, but I need _good_ reasons," Anne says more specifically. "And until I have three of them, you're not going anywhere."

I fall back on the sofa, infuriated out of my mind. "This isn't fair, Anne; I hardly get any time to sleep anyway, yet you're still forcing me to stay awake for this hideous assignment of yours! Let me go!"

"I'm going to fail this bloody class, Lily," Anne says. "I need you – you're Muggleborn!"

"I told you the only three reasons I know of," I say. "Like I said, be convincing and the essay will be good!"

"Will you help me be convincing enough?" Anne asks hopefully.

"_Yes_," I say loudly for the hundredth time tonight. "I will do _anything_ to get to bed, including making you sound convincing."

"Excellent, let's get started then." Anne dips her quill into her ink bottle and lets her hand hover over the parchment. "What should my first sentence be?"

"I don't know, Anne, just write something," I yell at her.

"Quit shouting at me," Anne says resentfully.

"I'm not shouting at you; I'm just talking a very loud and angry tone," I say shortly, though I know I was shouting.

"Well, don't," Anne orders me. "Now help me with my starting sentence."

"Just state your position – I think that Muggle buses are better than Apparition," I suggest.

"Yes, but that's dry and boring," Anne complains.

"Is there no end to your whining?" I demand. "Just write the damned essay! I want to sleep!"

"You're so cranky when you're tired," Anne grumbles.

"Do I have any reason not to be?" I ask. "I am being held here against my will and having my perfectly acceptable answers rejected because they're supposedly too boring for an already boring topic!"

"Wow, kitty certainly has claws." She makes a face at me. "You're such a bad sport."

"You're being so immature!" I say. "This is a boring essay, so put in a boring starter sentence!"

"Immature is only a word used by people who don't know how to have fun," Anne says in an annoying sing-song voice.

I sigh. "Write your sentence, please."

Anne gives me a look, but scribbles the sentence on the parchment at long last. I read it over her shoulder and give her a nod of approval. "It's a good sentence," I say, even though it's not; I just want to get to bed, and I don't quite care about the quality of the work now, so long as it's done.

"Yay," Anne purrs. She continues on and writes a little bit more, and after five minutes of listening to nothing but the scratching of her quill point, the entire introduction has been scrawled on her page. I read this too, and it's better, once I get past the fairly awful attention-getter sentence. "Good job," I say encouragingly.

"Thank you," Anne says, beaming as she taps her quill on her chin, thinking of a starter for her first paragraph. "Yes, I rather like my introduction as well. Now help me with my body paragraphs."

"Just do what you're already doing," I say with a yawn.

"You have _nothing_ more helpful than that?" Anne pulls on a disappointed expression. "Lily, you are so damn _boring_, you know that? You never do _anything_ interesting. You can't even stay awake at night."

"I'm tired," I try to defend myself. "I like to sleep."

"No, you like to _work_," Anne corrects me. "You really need to learn to balance out a social life and an academic interest, Lil. You need to be able to keep friends and hold someone's interest. How are you ever going to get a date if you can't spare anyone any night of the week for all your studying?"

"Stop worrying about me and my preferences and do your homework, please," I say brusquely.

"I'm serious here, Lily," Anne persists. "You're such a wonderful person, but you let yourself sound so utterly dull; let loose, have some fun, get a boyfriend."

"I don't like the guys here," I say. "I don't want to get into a relationship with one of them if I don't like them."

"Why not?" she asks. "They may be bastards, sure, but they're not your one-and-only; they're just there to entertain you."

"I believe in falling in love for real," I say dreamily. "Finding that one special guy, getting to know him, loving him, and then marrying him one day. I just haven't found him yet, but when I do, I'll put aside my books, of course I will."

"Thank goodness for that," Anne mutters. "But how will you know there's not a special guy around here just waiting for someone like you? You have to date around a little to know for sure."

"There isn't," I say. "I know everyone here rather well, and the boys are just not my type. I'm not as lucky as you were with James."

"I didn't want to date him, but when you forced me to, look how well it turned out," Anne says. "You have to _try_, Lily; that's the moral of the story here. _Try_."

"I don't want to," I say honestly. "I'm not one to fling my heart out to whatever random stranger passes me by."

"Why not? Are you afraid that, worst come to worst, he doesn't like you and dumps you?" Anne inquires. "That's stupid, Lils; take the chance and learn something from it. A bad experience is always a good story to tell."

"I don't want to have a good story to tell – I want my fairytale ending," I say. "You've already got yours, but I simply have to wait a little longer for mine; what's meant to happen will happen, regardless of my concern for the future."

"That's bullshit, Lily – you won't get a damn thing until you be a self-advocate and date a little," Anne declares. "I'll help you."

"I think I'm fine without your help, Annie," I say. "Now please write your bloody essay."

She puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me to face her. "Lily Evans, I am going to get you a boyfriend before the year is over, even if it's the last thing I do."

I put _my_ hands on _her_ shoulders and say, "Anneliese Weathers, I am going to make you finish this essay before twenty minutes is up, even if it's the last thing I do. Get to it."

Anne gives me a huffy breath. "Fine," she groans as she starts writing. "I'll work, but you need to be social."

"Whatever." I flick some dust off the table and watch her progress carelessly, my mind completely blank with tiredness. Before I can stop myself, my eyes start to close, and they're so heavy with sleep that I can do nothing about it but let myself fall into much-needed slumber.

**&&&**

It doesn't feel like a very long time that I'm in the bliss of complete blackness, so it appears sudden when I feel the slap on my arm, which makes my eyes bug open at once and scream; I see Anne's irritated form in front of me, and she is waving a piece of parchment in my face.

"LILY! Bloody hell, you can never stay awake!" she grouches. "I'm done with my essay now!"

"Good for you," I say tiredly. "Can I go?"

"No," she says. "You were asleep for an entire hour and you wouldn't wake up! That's why I slapped you!"

"I'm sorry," I say weakly, propping myself up higher on my chair. "I was tired. Do you need me to read over your essay?"

"No, you don't have to – I edited it all myself," she says. "Besides, Professor Bruin thinks that I'm getting help on my essays now, since they're so much better than my other ones."

I smirk. "Lovely."

"But don't think I forgot about our conversation before this," Anne says to me. "I am going to get you a boyfriend, Miss Evans, and you're going to _love_ him. Not just like him, but _love_ him. While I wrote my essay, I figured out the perfect guy for you."

"You did?" Though I'm exhausted, some tiny part of my brain is interested to know what she's cooked up now.

"Yes, I did," Anne says proudly. "C'mon; I'll take you upstairs and tell you who it is."

"Okay." I let her take my arm and lead me like an old, blind woman up the stairs to our dormitory. She has no problem with it this time, since she's got so much to say, and she's talking at such a high speed that I actually have to force my wrought-out brain to concentrate on catching each word.

"He's really sweet, Lil – so sweet that you wouldn't believe it. Like, you look at him, and you think, 'Wow, what a nice guy,' but then you get to know him, and it's like, where has he been all my life, you know? And he's _adorable_ – his hair is so _soft_, his eyes are so _pretty_, his lips are so _brilliant_. You'd be nuts if you didn't at least acknowledge these things in the safety of your mind; he's so well-built and so charming when you speak to him. He's really funny too – his sense of humor is kind of dry, but at the same time, it makes you crack up completely because of the way he says it; you'd just have to hear him talk. His voice is velvety and easy to listen to for a long time, you'd be amazed at how easily entranced you'd get. Did I mention how honest he is? No, I didn't; he says what's on his mind all the time, Lily, and even when it's rude, it still comes out nice! I don't know how he does it, but he's the kindest, most wonderful –"

"Who _is_ this guy?" I interrupt at last. "And why does someone so perfect exist without my knowing him?" I'm actually kind of awake now; this guy sounds ideal for me!

This is when Anne puts on her I'm-about-to-surprise-you-with-a-huge-bombshell face and stops me at the top of the stairs, right in front of the door to our dormitory. I wait for her to drag on the dramatic pause for a second, before she finally whispers, "James Potter."

Upon hearing his name, I instantly step hard on her foot, crushing her toes and making her yelp with pain. "What the bloody fuck did you do that for?" she hollers.

"_Language_, Anne," I reprimand her. "Don't say that word and don't describe James Potter like that; he's not as perfect as you just made him sound."

"He _is,_ that's what I'm trying to tell you," Anne says, rubbing her foot, her eyes watering. "He's perfect for you! He's everything you want, and I want you to get together with him."

"He's going out with you though," I say uncomprehendingly. "You love him and he loves you; it's already been established."

"Yeah, I won't deny that we're a good couple and that I like him, but you two are a _better_ couple; that's all I'm saying," she says. "I don't stay in relationships for a long time, and even though he likes me, he likes you more – you're his Lily."

"I am not _his_ Lily," I say stoutly. "I'm not _anybody's_ Lily, least of all his. You two are meant to be, not us – why are you trying to screw up the fairytale ending you were just given?" This just couldn't be right; it's like hearing Cinderella announce that she doesn't actually love her prince and wants to keep looking around, which is simply not right.

"It's not a fairytale ending," she says patiently. "There's no such thing as a fairytale ending, Lily; there's such thing as a happy ending, but this isn't it. I like James, but there's no _spark_, no real _connection_. Like I said, we're a _good_ couple, but you two are a _better_ one."

"No, Annie," I say, alarmed. "You are not going to break up with James for my sake. I'm not the one for him and he's not the one for me – it's pointless to pretend that we are. This whole thing was worked out fine for you; why are you trying to change it?"

"You're falling in love with him, Lily," Anne says gently, smiling at me. "I can see it. You talk about him all the time and when he hugged you, I could tell it was magic. You liked it, he liked it; are you going to deny that?"

"Yes, I am!" I argue. "Annie, I'm not in love with him. I don't like him at all. He hugged me, so I hugged him back, out of common courtesy for my best friend's boyfriend. It's not anything like love! He's over me and I'm over him."

Anne sighs. "Say what you want, but you're fallin' for him, Lils, and I'm probably going to break up with him anyway."

"Don't," I plead.

"We'll see," she says shortly. "Now c'mon; you wanted to go to bed, didn't you?" She opens the door to the dormitory. "Tomorrow's Friday – we can relax a little in the evening."

"Don't break up with James," I repeat. "Just don't."

"I'm only saying I probably will – I haven't done it yet and I'm not going to until I consult you a little further on it," Anne promises me. "Now don't you worry your pretty little carrot-head about us; go to sleep." She herds me into the room like a sheep, and we both fall on our beds, not in the mood to change into night clothes. Anne starts drifting off right away, seeing as she hasn't slept at all, but I lie awake, staring at the ceiling – it's the exact opposite of the scene downstairs. I can't sleep right now though; not after hearing Anne want to break up with James. She's completely out of her mind! Why is she trying to ruin her own relationship when it's pretty much perfect?! Remus told me himself that Anne was what James needed; she'd devastate him if she broke it off. She loves him too; she'd devastate herself right along with him. That would be so useless then – they'd be miserable over the other when they could be together. I can't think of anything worse than staying away when it's supposed to be; I can't let her break up with him. I've worked too hard for Cinderella to let her screw everything up – she has her prince, and now she must stick with him, otherwise a certain Fairy Godmother is going to be severely pissed.

I turn over, hoping to let drowsiness fall to my eyelids and carry me away, but all I can think of is Anne and James again; I want to keep them together somehow. I will do my best to, but with Anne, there's only so much one can do before they must back off and let her make her own decisions. It's her life, after all, but I can't make myself stand by and watch her ruin it. This will all have to stay together, otherwise the delicate balance at which we're at will be gone forever, and nothing will bring it back. I want Anne to be happy, and I know that James is what will make that happen; I will do my damnedest to make sure he remains in her life, it's as easy as that.

With a sigh, I close my eyes, letting the familiar numbness return to my feet and make its way through my body – for now, I will rest, but tomorrow, I'm going right back to my second job as matchmaker/resident Fairy Godmother, because I've got a happily ever after I need to save.

* * *

**A/N: There may have been some typos and bad phrasing near the end there, but I was tired when I edited, so please forgive me. :P But while you're doing that, do go ahead and click that button down there to review; you know you want to. ;D  
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	9. Of James Potter's Potions Proficiency

**A/N: Okay, so I just realized I made the HUGEST mistake with this story; I mixed up a couple of my days, so now I have to fix the problem, which was the purpose of this chapter. The next is going to be more like what I wanted to do with the story, and it's actually my favorite chapter; so, for now, enjoy this one, which is also good fun, and don't forget to review!

* * *

**

To my very great bewilderment, since last night, Anne has never brought up the topic of breaking up with James again – it's as though she never talked to me about it, but is carrying out her plans on her own.

Of course, she has been with him all day, seeing as it is Friday, laughing at his jokes and talking to him about anything that catches her fancy like always, but I have come to notice that she's keeping a vigilant lookout on him. I'm perfectly fine with that, but what I'm not sure about is what she's looking for in him – is she trying to probe for a reason to break up with him or is she looking for more evidence to convince me that he's a good match for me? I can never be sure about someone like Anne, since she's really unpredictable, but I have a feeling she was very serious when she told me she thought I was falling in love with James. It's not true, but I can never know what she's truly thinking about or what she's going to do; it's come to the point where I'm in a state of unease, as if we're all floating on the surface of a highly delicate and frail balance – what's going to tip the scale is anyone's guess, and mine, for now, is Anne.

Waving those worries aside, however, I'm horribly annoyed with James at the moment; he told me he was going to work with me on Wednesday on his essay, and that was two nights ago. I forgot all about it yesterday, since I had work and Anne's essay on my head, but now the memory of the disastrous Potions incident is back in my head and I'm furious with James for not even getting back to me on the matter. When classes let out today for the weekend and Anne is finally walking with me rather than James, I express my views about it, and she laughs.

"Yeah, I know he forgot – he just realized it this morning too," she says. "He wanted me to tell you that he was sorry, but he's been really busy lately – he wants to work with you tonight now, at around ten when the rest of the sixth years are out at Hogsmeade. Should I tell him that you're okay with it?"

"No!" I say irately. "See, this is why James Potter is not the perfect guy you told me he was; he _knew_ I had other things to take care of and that I would forget, but he went ahead and skipped out on the help anyway! I can't just adjust my schedule for him, Anne; that's out of the question!" I can feel the frustration building up in me over James; I don't know the cause, but I do know that it's threatening to take me over very soon.

"But your schedule isn't even full," Anne says with a snort. "You're just doing your own work."

"Yes, I'm doing my own work, but I've got a work schedule to stick to, and I can't screw it all up because it's convenient for James!" I shout, changing tack at the speed of light to keep my argument. "He's a jerk!"

Anne smiles. "You're such a silly little Lily," she says to me. "You only think he's a jerk because you couldn't have your alone time with him, but you shouldn't be so upset; he can do it with you tonight. He swore to me that his agenda was free and that he wouldn't postpone his time with you."

"I have _never _been so insulted in all my life!" I holler at her, my resentment coursing through me, giving me a huge lung capacity and plenty of rage to spare. "I don't _want_ alone time with him! I'm only doing it to be nice, and because he needs my help; this has _nothing_ to do with my personal preferences! Given the choice, he would simply be with you and leave me totally alone, but I've decided to _try_ to break a bit of ice with him, since you're always making me feel guilty about being harsh, and look what I get for it!"

"Calm down, Lily," Anne says, her voice maddeningly soothing when I want to explode. "I've never seen you this angry before. Why is it?"

"Because I was almost ready to accept James as more than a parasite, but he _had_ to go and forget all about the Potions-support I was going to give him," I snap. "That aggravates me more than anything – when you set up an appointment that benefits you, not the other person, and then you don't follow through with it."

"Relax, Lils; it's not his fault – he's only human," Anne says. "So should I tell him that it's okay for him to find you at ten in the Gryffindor common room today after his Quidditch practice?"

"Fine," I say loudly. "If it makes you happy, Annie."

"It does," she says serenely. "Go up to the dormitory; I'll be right there, okay?"

"Okay," I shoot at her moodily, allowing her to slip away from me to find James and tell him the 'good' news. As I walk alone and take a few deep breaths, my temper does start to cool down, and I start thinking a little more rationally about the question Anne asked me – why did I get so angry about the whole ordeal so quickly? It's unlike me to lose myself this way; I don't get what it is. Anne's theory is that I'm lamenting the loss of my alone-time with James, but that can't be true, because what I told her was right – I'm only being good to him for _her_ sake. She obviously thinks differently, but she's wrong, because I don't love him at all. He can't love me back, either, if he forgot he was supposed to sit with me for two hours discussing Potions – when we were younger, he would ask me for homework help all the time precisely for the reason of being next to me for a while. I never understood why, and I still don't to this day, but he was a weird kid – no one knew what went on in that mind of his, and it seems that he still follows this unwritten rule.

I sigh with aggravation as I stomp up to my dormitory and wait for Anne; stupid, bloody James Potter. I'll give him a piece of my mind once it's time for our study session tonight.

**&&&**

By nine fifty nine, I am in the common room with Anne, sitting on the sofa with my Potions materials spread out across the table in front of me. The rest of the Gryffindors are out at Hogsmeade, as we had known they would be, and it is only the two of us there, listening to the clock tick irritatingly on the wall, waiting for James Potter.

We have not said anything to the other in a while – in fact, not a single word has been exchanged between us since nine thirty, when Anne started coaxing me downstairs to get ready. I am not at all pleased with this arrangement, and she knows it, but that doesn't mean she's going to let me get out of it, which is causing me to pout constantly, throw immature glares, and be a generally bad sport. She won't say anything, but Anne finds this immaturity of mine very funny – the moment the clock chimes ten, she asks, "Lily, I have _never_ seen you this worked up over _anything_. What's wrong with you?"

"James," I say shortly. "I don't want to be here for him. I want to be in bed."

"You're too boring for your own good," Anne informs me. "It's worse than I thought; I'm glad I forced you to come here, otherwise you'd be reading some _book_ in bed instead of hanging out here with James and I. You know we're much better than a few pages of paper, right?"

"Right now, I pick the few pages of paper," I tell her.

"Hush," Anne says, giving me a filthy look. "I think I hear James coming in."

I turn to look at the portrait hole, and sure enough, in comes James Potter, his hair messier than usual and panting. He bounds over to my sofa and plops down next to me, taking in gulps of air, much to my own amusement.

"I stayed outside with Sirius after practice ended," he explains to us between calming breaths. "Ran late. Sorry."

"You're right on time, actually," I say curtly, gesturing to the clock. "Thirty seconds past nine; I'm proud of you."

"Aww, thanks, Lily." He gives me his fullest smile and gives me a quick hug. I accept it stiffly, but say, "Let's get to work right away then."

"We have several hours tonight, and I still have, like, a week to finish afterwards," James points out.

"Yes, we do have several hours tonight – hours I'm going to use to challenge your brain in ways you wouldn't have even dreamed possible," I say, making my voice sound darkly ominous. "You will get all the information you could possibly need tonight, and then you will have your essay finished by Sunday evening, so that I can check over it and ensure that you have retained the knowledge I have forced you to acquire."

"Is that because I forgot about Wednesday?" James inquires. "Because I really am sorry about that – I know you're busy, but I am too, and I made a mistake."

"Yes, you did make a mistake, but you won't be making it again," I say, refusing to soften up my unsympathetic gaze.

"_Lily_," Anne says, her tone reprimanding. "It's not that big of a deal; didn't we discuss this?"

"I've already said I'm sorry, Lily," James says, her eyes enigmatic as he tries to convince me of his sincerity. "Would another hug make you feel better?" Gosh, what is it with James Potter and hugging people, I think to myself. I know that his voice is sarcastic as he says the last bit, which makes me think he added the question on for Anne's amusement, but I pretend that he means it, and answer accordingly.

"No," I say. "But either way, you do need to learn, and there's no other way to do it than repetition. Shall we get started?"

"Fine," James says, still watching me carefully, his eyes now indecipherable as the temporary playful-cover falls away. "Let's begin; what do you want me to do first?"

"Well, you're studying with Anne, so I have two of every item here on the table," I say, gesturing to the potion ingredients in front of us on the table. "Find me the things you need to make the Draught of Peace, please."

Obediently, Anne and James both start picking out objects from the pile I provided them, and I watch carefully as they make and correct their own mistakes. Good – knowing that mistakes are okay so long as they are fixable are okay to a certain extent is the first step to potion-making. Anne finishes first, a fact she takes great pleasure in rubbing into James's face, but I wait for a few more minutes before I say, "Good job; you got all the right materials, both of you."

"Score!" James chirps, high-fiving Anne. "We're good."

I watch this with some hilarity, but mostly, my emotions are centered on the universal theme of misunderstanding; James is always so guarded with me, yet when Anne's around, he lets go; it's only then that he lets himself be the joke-filled guy I remember. However, when he feels my curious eyes on him again, he immediately closes right back up, as though afraid of what he's given away to me; I can't help but wonder why he's so fearful of me. Have I really cast that impression on him, that I'm something to fear? I decide to test this theory out just now, as I watch him argue with Anne on who put on a better performance (in truth, it actually was Anne – James wasn't kidding when he said he needed a miracle to pass Potions), and sure enough, when they come back to earth, James clears his throat and composes himself up to be the cautious puppet he has become in my presence.

"Ready!" Anne says, her voice noisy and bright – ultimately childish.

"Of course we are." James gives Anne a smile, kissing her cheek in a manner that is just as childish as hers, but then looks somberly back at me. He's being so incredibly _stupid_; why does he think that I care how he behaves in front of me anymore? I wish, for a fleeting second, that we can be a little more open with each other, but I know we can't; that's why I clear my throat and say, "Okay, now I want you both to write me a list of instructions on making the Draught of Peace."

"By memory?" Anne is aghast.

"Yes, of course by memory," I say. "You won't have your instruction sheets in the exam room, will you? You need to remember how to do this."

"Great," she moans as she picks up a quill and starts writing. "I'm so screwed."

"You think I'm going to do any better?" James asks her. "Mine exploded in class, if you recall."

"I know, that was so funny," Anne says, chortling.

"Gee, thanks," James complains.

"It was cute though," she says, giving him a real smile. "I enjoyed it."

"Thanks," James repeats, though this time with more sincerity. He leans in to kiss her, but I cough and say, "Hurry up; if you do well on what I'm going to give you today, I'll leave early and let you two snog all you like."

"Sorry," James murmurs, going automatically to his parchment as well.

It's silent in the common room then, as the two of them rack their brains to think of the process, so I'm left to reflect on my own. What I reflect on, though, is really weird – I try to examine this strange, touchy nerve in the bowels of my stomach, in the very back of my guts. It's this tiny, tender little thing, but the moment I look at James, it gets irritated and something in me snaps, like a twig when I step on it – instantly, I go back to the hormonal reactions I used to encounter when I was thirteen, and I don't know what to do anymore. The weirdest part about it is that it only happens when I see James talking to another girl; I can't stand that. When he talks to _me_, there's more of a gnawing ache in the area of that hideous nerve, one that can't be quenched – I think it craves his attention and his approval, but that can't be right, because I don't like him. It's all so tiresome; why is it always me?

I sigh as I bring my head around and check in on Anne and James, who are nearly done with their lists – I can already see several errors on each of theirs, and I'll need to do a lot of talking so that they understand how to correct them. It's obvious, even right now – it's going to be a very long night.

**&&&**

Around two in the morning, when everyone's already come back and gone to bed, the common room is filled with the usual litter, and I am tired out of my mind, something clicks in the brains of Anne and James (Anne first, then James) at long, long last.

I'm half asleep, right, and ready to give up, and then I can almost see the light-bulb go off in her head. "I get it!" she shouts. "Let me try it one more time!"

In front of her is my cauldron, which I have allowed the two to borrow for the night's lesson, and several extras of our potion elements which she is using to unsuccessfully illustrate the creation of the Draught of Peace (I'm going to need one of those myself after the amount of times I've had to go over this); she takes them and begins again, working herself into a frenzy, dumping things in and stirring them up. James observes in amazement as she goes, as do I, and finally, Anne excitedly points at the liquid in the cauldron.

I peer in as well with a yawn. "Wow," I comment tiredly. "You _did_ do it right." I'm so out of it that I don't even realize what this means until I take a few seconds to figure it out; then I impatiently wave away all of my fatigue to shriek, jump up and down, and hug her while shouting, "YOU GOT IT, YOU GOT IT!"

"I GOT IT, I GOT IT!" Anne chants with me, hugging me back. When I let her go, she jumps straight on to James, screaming the same thing into his ear, as he throws his arms around her too.

"Good job, Annie!" he cries joyfully. "I'm so proud of you!"

I'm not quite clear on the reasoning behind it, but it slightly bothers me that James is calling Anne 'Annie'; she's always hated that name if it comes from someone who's not me. I never knew he had the enormous honor of using that name, and somehow, I don't want him to have it. It's our _ritual_, and James Potter has no right or reason to intrude upon it.

For the millionth time tonight, I clear my throat edgily and say, "Your turn, Potter. Make the Draught of Peace for me."

"You called me Potter," he says, sounding dazed.

"Isn't that your name?" I ask, my eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," he says. "But you have this thing against last names – you've always called me James and got upset when I called you Evans."

I shrug, but say nothing more on the subject, hoping to move on. Of course, James won't let me move on until he's done with me, so he asks me again, "Why'd you call me Potter?"

"For sake of variety," I say sarcastically. "Now I want that potion right now, otherwise I swear I'm going to curse you."

James opens his mouth to object, but Anne puts a comforting hand on his forearm. "She gets cranky when she's sleepy," she explains to him confidentially, though I'm still in the room. "Just go along with what she says."

Not thoroughly convinced, he starts to make the draught anyway, keeping a watchful look on me. I'm far too exhausted to care, so I lie back and attempt to keep my eyelids open until he triumphantly tells me, "I'm finished! I think I got it right this time."

I sit up and lean over to look at his creation. It looks pretty good to me, and out of lack of desire to pursue this point any further, I say, "Good job, James – you got it. Finally."

James gives me an enormous smile. "Thanks Lily; I actually got it this time! I can't believe it! You're quite a good teacher; a miracle, as Anne would say."

Anne laughs. "You are, Lils; he took the words right out of my mouth. Thanks."

I yawn. "Start outlining your essays and give me something spectacular when I work with you again if you want to prove to me that you appreciate the time and effort I'm putting in for you."

"Okay," James says agreeably. "When do you want to meet again?"

"Let's say next Wednesday, since it's due just after that," I say. "Don't forget this time, Potter."

Looking slightly troubled at my choice of Potter over James again, he says, "I'm sorry again, _Lily_, but I won't forget."

"Good." I give him a lazy pat on the back. "Now get out of here so that I can go to bed."

"You're harsher than usual at night," James comments.

"You get used to it," Anne assures him. "Lily's overly high maturity level reaches down to ours when the late night hours hit." She yawns and adds, "I don't blame her though – I'm ready to fall too. I'm going to bed." With a salute to me and a kiss on James's cheek, she says, "Good night."

"I'm going to help Lily pack up, but I need to go to bed as well," he says. "I have early practice tomorrow."

"How much practice do you _need_?" Anne asks, stunned.

"A lot," James says gloomily. "Cummings doesn't trust us, so we're forced to go to every one of his practices. The guy has no life – he schedules one nearly every day."

Anne and I nod sympathetically; Andrew Cummings is the captain this year for the Quidditch team, and though he's an extraordinary Beater, he is, according to Anne, 'a highly over-achieving nerd-bomber.' Apparently, James finds this description accurate, and shivers involuntarily as he waves his wand to clean up the Draught of Peace from my cauldron for me. With a second yawn, Anne trudges up the stairs as I long to, and I am left with James in the common room. I'm not sure if he planned for it to work this way, or if he was just trying to be helpful – with this new James Potter, I can never tell. So, to test my theory, I keep my mouth shut as I put the few extra ingredients we have left into baggies. James is silent as well for a few minutes, but then he speaks.

"So, Lily…are you still mad at me for forgetting about our meeting the other day?" he inquires.

"No," I say, surprising myself by very suddenly meaning the word. "I'm not – we all make mistakes."

"Okay, good," he says with relief. "Just making sure."

"Is that why you stayed back?" This is another thing I've noticed – with both types of people James has been in my eyes, it has been far too easy to say what's on my mind. I can't know if that's a bad thing or not, but right now, as he clearly struggles with himself for an answer, it does seem like a negative aspect.

"Well, yes," he says. "I don't want you to be up in arms on me. This doesn't have to be a war."

"I guess not." I have nothing else to say as I stuff my baggies into my Potions pouch, which I then cram into my bag; all I can think about is how very awkward this conversation is becoming. We may be blunt, but blunt doesn't always mean honest – sometimes it does, but with us, it doesn't.

James is obviously realizing this too, so he keeps quiet. This is so unlike him; he's got alone time with me – doesn't that mean that he has to completely drive me nuts, simply because he can? He is driving me crazy, yes, but this time, it isn't a shallow aggravation; now it's a yearning, burning hunger to figure out what the hell he thinks of me. I watch him closely over my fumbling fingers, which are working on closing my bag, but his eyes are unreadable; he's trying to shut me out. I knew it, I think all of a sudden, an epiphany coming to me – he hates me. I bite my lip; he hates his girlfriend's best friend – how convenient.

Finally, we're finished with the task of clearing up, and our table is spotless. James looks satisfied when he gazes at it, but when his eyes turn to me, they're more uncertain. He waits a moment, and then asks, "Do you think I hate you?"

Damn – am I really that easy to read?

"You appear to," I confess shyly.

"I don't." James says the two words with so much conviction that I don't seem to be allowed to have any doubts in my mind. "I don't hate you at all, Lily – actually, I want to be on better terms with you."

"You do?" Perhaps I should have expected this, but it still shocks me.

"Yeah," he says with a smile. "You're Anne's best friend; we should be friends, shouldn't we?"

Oh. _That's_ what I should have expected – that he doesn't give a shit about me anymore and is only being nice to me for Anne's sake. I swallow down my indignation with difficulty and say, "Erm, yes, of course. We'll be friends."

"Great." He puts his muscled arms out to give me a hug, but when I lean in to accept the hug, we can't figure out how to make our arms entwine without making it too uncomfortable; instead, he simply puts out his hand, and I shake it firmly, blushing because of his closeness, the heat of his sweaty hand, the sheer unpredictability of the gesture. We are James Potter and Lily Evans – we're not supposed to get along, as a rule, yet we are shaking hands. It feels completely out of the ordinary, but so _right_ at the same time; I can't help but notice how nicely his hand fits with mine.

When we have shaken on the notion of being friends, James picks up his bag and says, "So we're meeting Wednesday for essay editing?"

"Yeah," I confirm. "Make sure it's fully written and developed by then – I'm only there for little things, not to write the thing for you."

"Fair enough." James gives me his famous back-thump. "You know, Lil, you're a good teacher – you should consider teaching here one day."

"No, I don't want to do that," I say. "My heart lies with medicine – I'd love to be a Healer."

"You could do anything, with that brain of yours, but you should be a teacher," James says. "You're patient, sweet, and easy to talk to."

My blush is even more defined. "Thank you," I say, hoping to conceal how pleased I am now. "But I'm going to be a Healer. When you get decimated on the Quidditch field, I'll be there to patch you up."

"I don't want to be a professional player," James says, astonishing me yet again. "I like Quidditch, but I don't want to play it for a living – there's more to life than throwing Quaffles around, you know? I want to be a Dark wizard catcher; it's so much more fascinating and fulfilling. I'll feel like I'm really doing something for society."

My smile is soft as I say, "That's…a really, really good goal, James."

"Thanks, Lil," he says, an unsure sort of a look on his face; I've switched emotions pretty quickly right in front of him, and he has every right to be befuddled by it.

"No problem." I cough and sling by bag over my shoulder. "See you Wednesday then?"

"Sure." He waves and gives me a James Potter grin before leaping up the stairs three at a time, despite the heavy bag on his back. I shake my head as I slowly crawl up the stairs – James has far too much energy for his own good.

I finally make it upstairs to my room after a few minutes of pondering on how he can be so lively all the time, and when I do, I gratefully dump my bag in the corner, and fall to my bed, half-asleep already. However, my tired brain does question the last conversation I'd just had with James, much to my eyelid's consternation; what did it all mean? It's only a five-word question, but the answer is so complicated that I wonder if it even exists at all. There are really no words to describe our relationship now besides awkward or cautious, because that's all we are. Anne is our only link, otherwise I wouldn't even speak to him, I bet. He comes from a different world; it's like a knight deciding, one fine day, to consult his scullery maid on the numerous muddled affairs of his life and actually take her words to heart. It simply can't happen, yet it has, and since it's the only bond of its kind, there's no way of dissecting it and figuring out how to make it work. How frustrating is that?!

I sigh in the darkness as I blissfully close my eyes, calling sleep over to me as loudly as my mind will allow me to – James Potter might have changed for the better lately, but one thing that has remained constant throughout the six years I've known him, and it is the fact that no matter what kind of normal conversation I attempt to engage him in, he will always find something to say that will mystify me fully.

That, truly, is a talent worth inspecting.

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**A/N: Ugh; I get no time to edit these days – a few words might be repeated, a few phrases might be rough, and some things may not make sense, but that's because I'm tired and can't fix some things. The next chapter, as you can guess, is the one where James, Anne, and Lily finish up their essays. However, it is also, as I told you at the start, my favorite chapter of all, so review this one so that I can put that one up as soon as possible!  
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	10. Of James Potter and Kissing

**A/N: Muahahaha, my favorite chapter, as shown by the title and the Author's Notes in the last chapter. xD You'll see exactly why in a bit, so for now, I won't say anything except these few words: read, enjoy, and ****review!

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I think I'm totally freaking out.

Actually, I _know_ I am, but the thing is, I don't know _why_. Ever since my Friday night/Saturday morning conversation with James and the random words I've had with Anne about James, I've been in this constant state of apprehension and almost-panic. There's no reason whatsoever for it, but something stronger than logic is tearing constantly at my insides, as though warning me that something big is going to happen soon. A sure sign on that brilliant something would be lovely, but I'm completely in the dark – if I ask Anne about why I'm feeling this way, she'll only say that I'm falling in love. Annoyingly enough, she won't say with whom, though she clearly does imply that it's James. I always remind her that I don't fall in love, but she declares that maybe this is the exception – maybe this is the time that's going to count for something. At this point, I will normally declare that she must have eaten too much chocolate and it's getting to her brain, which will win me some dirty looks, but those are the extent of it.

Yes, and that's the other major thing that keeps me on my toes! James! Anne is always so weird when the topic of me and James comes up in conversation – she'll say we're meant to be (i.e. she'll spit out whatever_ I've_ been telling _her_ for the past while) but she'll have this look in her eyes, which changes day to day. I've seen her look really upset that she thinks she won't ever be with James, but there are times when I see empathy – she's trying to find what's best for _me_, even if that means taking away what she used to feel was best for herself. If I see that glint of compassion in her, I take no hesitation in straight-out asking her whether or not she wants to be with James. She isn't someone to lie right to a friend's face, a fact I've known since I met her, and when she shifts uncomfortably at the prospect of answering such a direct question, I realize that she was completely serious the day she said she would break up with him. It's getting bad these days – I'm genuinely scared that she's going to soon get rid of everything I've worked towards for her.

To sum it all up, it's been a very tense time for me and Anne – we're like trapeze artists on opposite ends, lingering delicately to balance on a very fine wire. We won't talk about it, but the mood is there, and it's undeniable – every moment James is with us, I wonder how he doesn't notice the looks Anne and I sometimes exchange with each other. Or, maybe he does notice, but he doesn't say anything, like we also prefer not to. That's one of those troubling things about James; he can feel tremendous amounts of emotion towards something, but it takes candid probing and questioning to figure everything out – probing and questioning people don't always take the time to do. I wonder if even Anne has done it yet; she generally takes things for face-value and doesn't dig any deeper unless she has to, and her definition of necessary has differed from mine since day one. Ah, well – that's life, isn't it?

So, fast-forwarding to today, it's Wednesday, the day I planned on meeting James. Right now, I'm making my way down to breakfast, reflecting upon these thoughts with a certain dread; I don't want to destroy the equilibrium tonight, the way I think I might. Anne is with James, I am helping them both with their homework; this is how it should always be, contrary to popular belief. Anne is walking right next to me, and if I asked her, I'm sure that if she was honest with herself, she'd say that I was right – she's just trying to live down another statement of truth coming from my mouth with utter denial, and I know it.

So, finally tired of my brooding state, Anne chooses to carelessly obliterates my reverie to inquire, "So…a Knut for your thoughts, Miss Lily?"

I start – I know she's there, but when I don't speak to her for so long, I have a hard time adjusting to her existence again. "Sorry?"

"You're totally in your own little world here," Anne says, gesturing at me. "I want to know what has you so bugged, seeing as you haven't said a word to me since we woke up this morning."

I sigh. "I'm not really bugged, Annie – I'm thoughtful. I don't want to help James again tonight."

"Why not?" she asks. "Didn't you decide that you wanted to accept James as more than a parasite now?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that we're awkward beyond belief around each other," I remind her. "Didn't I tell you about the conversation we'd had after you went up to bed?"

"Oh yeah," Anne says, remembering this with a silly smile on her face. "He likes you – I've told you that before, but you never believed me. Be nice to him and he'll respond; it's so easy. Tonight will be just fine if you don't overcomplicate it. You have a terrible habit of doing that."

"I do?" I know what her answer is going to be, of course, but it's best to play dumb to get a full explanation that I'm interested to hear.

"Yes, you do overcomplicate things," Anne confirms for me. "You could seriously make someone doubt that one and one makes two, Lils – you're so insecure that way. You can't make a stand, you can't be blunt, and you can't trust yourself – do you know how bad that is?"

"I'm not insecure," I argue. "I know exactly what I want – it's just that my values almost never match yours."

"Yeah, that's your other problem," Anne says, changing tack faster than I can think of another decent argument. "You're so convinced that you're right on track that you stray even farther from what you need! Can't you just _listen_ me for once, rather than just assuming I'm stupid and that what I have to say doesn't matter?"

"You know I don't do that, but can we stop harping on my faults anyway?" I request. "I don't like it."

"Of course you don't like it," Anne tells me, pleased with the victory that is within her grasp by now. "I'm telling you a truth that you don't want to hear – no one likes that."

"Thank you," I say curtly as we approach the Great Hall. "But right now, I'm hungry; I don't want to have you shove personal criticism down my throat, because I want to shove toast in as an alternative. It's much better for my digestion, if you get my drift."

Anne rolls her eyes, but opens the door of the hall for me anyway, changing the subject as she does – this pleases me, obviously. Now that I've successfully got Anne off my back this morning, she won't bother me again until after school later, which only leaves worrying about James on my daily to-do list, right above what I'm going to do with him in a few short hours.

Evidently, my life is nothing but a never-ending cycle of fun.

**&&&**

In the evening after yet another exhausting day of school, I am about to settle down on my favorite couch in the common room at five, as usual, to do my homework, but when I go to sit down, I see that my seat is occupied by none other than Sirius Black. He is playing with his Fanged Frisbee without a care in the world, absorbed by the object and its minuscule teeth, and it takes me several significant coughs to make him acknowledge my presence. He looks up at me with surprise, astonished that I have come to talk to him; I tend to avoid him on normal days.

"All right, Queen Evans of All that is Homework-Related?" he inquires sardonically, giving me a nod of his head and a mockingly questioning look.

"Yes, Royal Subject Black of All that is Indolent and Procrastination-Loving, I'm fine," I require back, my tone cutting. "But you are currently seated in my favorite throne and I wish to do what I do best, my homework, so I'm hoping that you will get your lazy arse off of it."

Sirius smirks, gives me a sarcastic slap on my rear, and moves to the sofa next to mine as I curtsey for him and take a seat. I take out my books while Sirius strokes his toy, appearing to be deep in thought, but after a few minutes, he speaks.

"So, Evans…really, how are you?" he asks me, his voice screaming out boredom as the main reason he is talking to me.

"Fine," I answer vaguely, turning a page in my book and not bothering to look up at him. "Just fine."

"Glad to hear it." He gives me another nod, though it's not as sarcastic.

I sit with him for a few more minutes, but the silence is pretty gauche, so simply for the sake of saying something, I solicit my latest thought: "So did James tell you when he was coming down here for help on his essay?"

"Yeah, he said around six," he says flippantly. "He didn't want to bother you right away, since he knows you like doing your homework at five, which I presume would be now, since you're here."

"Oh," I say, stunned by this unexpected thoughtfulness. "Well, that was rather nice of him."

"He enjoys doing stupid things for you," Sirius says confidentially. "He still likes you."

"He's going out with Anne," I remind him flatly. I don't know why I'm not as happy about this as I was a few days back.

"He is, but that doesn't mean he got over you, or that he even necessarily likes Anne that way," Sirius tells me. "I know for a_ fact_ that he still likes you – I'm his best friend."

"Remus said Anne was exactly what James needs right now," I say before I can stop myself, trying to get my facts straight. "He must like her."

"Remus _would_ tell you something like that, but it's not the case," Sirius says, shaking his head. "He likes Anne, but you're still his favorite."

"That can't be right, stop lying to me," I say shortly, not wanting to continue this conversation any longer. "I don't want to hear it."

"Suit yourself, but denial can only take you so far." With a cruelly obscure shrug, he picks up his Fanged Frisbee again. "I think I want to go get a snack," he muses aloud. "Something fattening that will make Remus faint over how many pounds he thinks I'm going to gain from it. Enjoy your homework then, my Queen." With this, he chucks his Frisbee across the room, hitting an innocent first year in the head, and gets up to exit the common room, leaving me with a low bow to my befuddled interpretations of our conversation in his wake.

Great, I think as I go back to my homework, my mind anywhere but within my books, for once; I don't know what he meant by all that waffle he just presented me with, but I'll make my mind up officially after I'm done patching up James's writing skills.

**&&&**

Sure enough, Sirius's statement came true a little while later, at about ten past six – James saunters over to me while I'm still sitting on my favorite sofa (this time not running like he was previously) and sits down next to me, grinning.

"Hey, Lily," he says warmly.

"Hi," I say, hoping to sound nonchalant.

"Where's Anne?" He looks around for her, which lets me breathe a sigh of relief to myself before talking to hi again.

"She doesn't feel like studying right now, apparently," I say, a slightly cold edge to my tone. "She's going to beg for my help later tonight."

James smiles. "That figures – she wanted me to go out just now."

I choose not to respond to this, and inquire, "So are you ready to sincerely work? I don't have much time to give you."

"Yes, I'm ready," he assures me. "I wrote my entire essay last night – Peter and Sirius thought I was nuts, and Remus thought I was going through a reform." He snorts as he takes out the essay from his bag. "I thought it was pretty good though – I actually knew what I was talking about this time. Potions has never been my forte, if you know what I mean."

"I see." I scan through his paper. "Well, it doesn't look half-bad from here, but I'm going to read it through before I say anything."

"Sounds good to me." James's smile is relaxed as he leans back on his chair. "Take your time."

I smirk, but go on reading anyway. I do have to take out my quill and scratch out a few things, as well as add some in, but his essay is much better than the ones Anne tries to turn in all the time – he's got a great way with words when he understands his subject matter. I'm absorbed by the vivid descriptions he manages to provide – they make the dry topic almost interesting. Is there anything the perfect James Potter _can't_ do?

As I go through, sometimes fixing and sometimes just admiring his word usage, I hear someone enter the common room. Out of reflex, I look up, and I see that it is Anne, who looks utterly pleased to see us both together. She bounces up to us, in the highest of moods, and sits across from us, her face glowing.

"Hey Jamesie, hey Lily," she greets us. "What's going on here?"

"I'm helping _James_ on his essay," I say, delicately stressing the proper pronunciation of his name – somehow, cutesy nicknames fully manage to annoy me. "I should be looking over yours, too, but you unfortunately had other business that was more important to you."

"Oh, relax, Lils," she says airily. "Homework can wait. I was out at Hogsmeade just now, and they have the _cutest_ little tea store that's opened up across from Madam Puddifoot's, and I wanted to know if James wanted to go with me there." She glances expectantly at him, and I give him the same look, but with a different expectation – I want him to stay so that he can do his bloody editing. James takes both of our faces in, and sighs.

"Sorry, Anne, but I promised Lily I'd do this right now, and I will," he says. "We'll go a bit later, all right?"

I do an internal victory dance; I win! I don't know why this makes me so happy, but it does, so I keep my mouth shut and wait for Anne to respond. She makes a highly revolted expression, but then she gives him a broad grin and comes forward. "Fine, fine, study," she says. "At least kiss me and give me something to on, will you?"

James smiles and obliges – I turn slightly away, unwilling to stare at my best friend while she snogs my new-friend-who-happened-to-be-my-ex-enemy. It doesn't last very long, thankfully, but it's because Anne pulls away after a bit, a guise of thoughtfulness on her face. James looks questioningly at her, as do I, and she answers both of us by saying, "You know, James, I only just realized that you're a terrible kisser."

I can't help it – I burst out laughing when she says this. James is amused to a certain extent, but he raises his eyebrows in confusion and resentment. "Excuse me?" he asks.

Anne giggles. "I'm sorry, really, but you are."

"Yes, and that's why you kiss me all the time, right?" He, like me, thinks it's a bit rich of her to call him a bad kisser after all the kissing she's engaged him in lately, and I'm fascinated in seeing how this conversation goes.

"It's not a bad thing, calm down," Anne says, smiling at him and affectionately adjusting his bangs to make them frame his face. "I'm just saying you're a bad kisser. We'll fix that, but later – you have homework to do and I have some window-shopping I feel like doing." She waves and says, "Bye, you two."

"Bye," we say simultaneously, our voices dumbfounded.

Anne laughs merrily and departs through the portrait hole. Once she's gone, James and I sit together, awkward and noiseless, until I finally clear my throat and say, "I'm just going to finish this essay now so you can accompany Anne to that shop. I'm nearly done."

"Fine by me." James's face is reflective as he leans back to his original spot as I return my attention to his papers, and we are without any sound again – it's amazing how prone we are to these awkward silences. If we were really meant to be, as Anne likes to claim we are, that wouldn't happen – conversation would flow without any effort. Well, more evidence for me, anyway; I suppose there's nothing more to think about on that matter. I make my final corrections and am about to tell James I'm finished, but he speaks first.

"Lily, tell me the truth – am I a bad kisser?" he asks me worriedly, as though this is the biggest, most philosophical question in the world and his life depends on the reply he gives.

"Erm…" I don't have any experience whatsoever with kissing boys, so I can't give him a very good answer. However, I do have some ideas as to why Anne would think that he was a bad kisser, so I decide to share them with him. "Well," I start uneasily. "You kind of…attack her."

"_She_ kisses _me_," James corrects me. "_She_ attacks _me_."

"No, I mean when you actually make…make contact," I stutter; I can hardly believe I'm exchanging this type of dialogue with _James Potter_, of all people, making coherent speech a wee bit on the difficult side. "You take way too much control. A kiss is supposed to be tender and sweet, isn't it?"

"I suppose." James is surprised that these words can come out of my mouth. "That's very smart – what else did I do wrong?"

"And you kind of _fall_ forward to her," I continue. "Don't do that – ease into it more."

"Just be gentle? Is that it?" he muses. "I used to do that, but _that_ was when I was dubbed a bad kisser; I'm supposed to be a damn good one right now. Guess not."

"Just because the girls you dated are obscenely violent with their kissing, doesn't mean you have to listen to them," I point out.

"How do _you_ know so much about kissing?" he wants to know.

"I don't," I say with a nervous giggle. "I haven't kissed anyone, but I know I'd want it to be."

His eyes come alive then with a handsome darkness and curiosity, and I can't help but be a little mesmerized by them. In an instant, he's being open with me and not hiding what's going on in that head of his, so his intensity is able to shine through for the very first time. It's disconcerting, this sudden change in emotion – I've never seen James look at me this way before. I should probably feel a little grateful that he's finally not afraid of me, but now, _I'm_ the one who's afraid of _him_; why is it happening like this?!

"Really?" he finally asks me.

"Yeah," I say stupidly, trying to snap back into reality and the boy in front of me. "I read too many romance novels for my own good."

He continues to stare at me, not saying a word, and I'm simply motionless; I don't know what's going on here. His face hasn't changed – his expression is still light and close-to-friendly, as it had been before, but now there's some quality to it that I can't put my finger on. It's not hard or too intense to handle or anything, but I guess I can say that it just has more _depth_ this time; I never saw James Potter as a real person with real emotions he might show me until this moment. He has never acted like this around me before, consequently robbing me of a way to know how to respond, so I figure it's just better to play it safe, quiet. I'll let him make the first move, if he wants to make one at all.

And Merlin, he does make the first move. He leans in slowly, carefully yet gracefully, towards me until his mouth is right by mine. It's terrifying, having him so close to me; I can feel everything about him – the scent of new grass and pine trees, the warmth of his breathing on my face, his weight resting on my thigh, the heat of his hand on my own. It's all startlingly new, but I find that I'm _almost_ enjoying it. Almost. "Like this?" he whispers, his breath tickling my nose.

Right then, I get that sensation just behind my navel which tells me something big is about to happen, as well as the jitters that come with the fact that someone is so close to me – am I about to get my first kiss? I can't even budge; I just sit there, with James Potter right in my face. However, I do shock myself by listening to that crazy part of me and whispering one word back to him: "Yes."

With a near air of surrender, he shyly lets his lips capture mine, and before I know it, I'm seriously _kissing_ him. _Kissing_ the boy I had sworn to hate since I was eleven, simply because he wanted to know if he was doing it right! _Kissing_ a boy that I only became friends with a few days back! _Kissing_ a boy who was going out with my best friend! Oh shit; he's going out with Anne. Alarm bells instantaneously go off in my head, and I try to pull away, but I can't. Every part of me is screaming at me to stop him, but I can't. I taste the residue of something sweeter than the most sugary candy bar in the world on those lips of his, and I need more – it's shameful, but I do. Every time I try to pull away, I keep coming back for more, and before I know it, we are deepening the kiss. My hands are around his neck and starting to snake up to his hair, while he's pulling me closer, fingers around my waist; the world is crashing down behind me, but I can't seem to make myself care. I know somewhere in the back of my brain that this isn't right, this isn't fair to Anne, this isn't what I want, but at the same time, it _is_ what I want – like a guilty pleasure. When his hand starts to move to my back, that's when I finally regain control over my senses and break the now-very-involved kiss with a sharp intake of breath. My heart is beating at a hundred times its normal rate, and I'm revolted with myself. What the bloody hell did I just do and why did I do it?!

James looks astonished as well – he's staring at me again, but his face is blank with surprise; he, like me, had never expected to get that kind of a kiss, least of all now, since he's going out with Anne. Had those eyes always been so big and beautiful, or is it just now? I can't even think; I try to catch my breath, and the moment I do, I gulp and feel the temperature rise to my cheeks – oh gosh. I'm screwed. Screwed, screwed, screwed.

"I'm sorry," he says then, obviously discomfited by my obvious horror. "I shouldn't have done that."

"You were much gentler until the end there, if that helps," I offer, desperate for anything to say that doesn't expose the plethora of emotions that are coursing through my body at dangerous speeds at the moment.

James still looks concerned about me, so I cough and pick up the forgotten essay I'd edited for him; "Here," I say, thrusting it roughly at him. "Look at my corrections and then turn it in. That's it, we're done, nothing else to say." My words tumble out quickly and shakily, and I sound like I'm babbling, but I can't help it – I'm anxious. I shove the essay at him, not daring to meet those eyes again after knowing their effect on me, and stuff my things into my bag.

"Good-bye, Potter," I add just before I leave, purposely not calling him James. "Have a lovely day."

"Lily," he says, trying to stop me, but I determinedly stalk up the stairs, wanting to get away – far away – from him.

I fly up to my dormitory, slam my door shut, and fall on my bed, my head whirling. Well! That was _not_ the way I'd planned on helping James Potter today! Oh dear Merlin, what have I just gotten myself into?! I _kissed_ him! Why the bloody hell did I kiss him? I shouldn't have, it was stupid, and he just wanted advice with words, not with lips – why did I kiss him? I've rejected him so many times, so what was different about _this _time? Why did he come up on me like that? What's wrong here? I don't understand this, truly, I don't – I didn't mean to kiss him! It can't be right, because I don't love him or anything, and it can't be moral either, seeing as I've recently matched my best friend with him. I feel like I've sinned by succumbing to him, which I have – he's my best friend's boyfriend. He's off-limits! I swallow thickly and let a single hot tear roll gently down my cheek; what have I done?

However, I can't be the only one to blame here – I realize this with a jolt as I lay my head back on my pillow in misery. I mean, I made sure I didn't make the first move; that was purely James. _James_ leaned forward a few minutes ago, _James_ asked me about kissing, and_ James_ was the only one to ever express any kind of attraction in the first place; he is the common denominator in everything here, unlike me. If Anne gets mad, I'll have to remember to point this out.

I sigh, and let my finger run across my bottom lip. I can still feel the essence of him on that surface, like a sprinkling of magic fairy dust, and I hate that. I hate that I let him get under my skin; how can one person I didn't even like do all this to me? It's not right – it's beyond that, it's upsetting, if I want to get technical. Even if it was my first, I shouldn't like that kiss so much; I shouldn't even be thinking about it anymore. A wave of something ugly and murderous rises up somewhere in my lower intestine, but it's immediately followed up by something perversely attracted to him as well – what the hell is going on with me? I let a second tear join the dregs of the first; this is getting quite, quite complicated here, and I'm not sure how to fix it. I _kissed_ James Potter, the boy I used to hate; it's like the Fairy Godmother making a move on Prince Charming behind poor Cinderella's back. Not only does it not go with the story, it's appalling and sickening! I take a shaky breath to attempt to relax myself; something must be and will be done, starting tomorrow morning, since there's nothing I can do in the present time.

Really, tonight, the only thing I can possibly do is tell Anne that I kissed her boyfriend while she was out window-shopping in Hogsmeade.

I go with what I said before, in that case – I'm so screwed beyond belief.

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**A/N: Wow…if you knew how much editing and fussing went into that chapter, you'd probably laugh at me. It was just so **_**difficult**_**, getting the right feelings and conceptions out there with this one; it's one of the most complex things I've ever written. I'm _still _not fully content with it. However, no, you're not supposed to know the full extent of the kiss right now – that's for the next chapter, as well as some other housekeeping sorts of topics. :P So, now that I've given you something exciting to read, I'd like a review from you so that I can go on to the next chapter full steam ahead! It's that purplish button down there, do you see it? Good, good; click on it.  
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	11. Of the Insanity Caused by James Potter

**A/N: Okay, now, I'm warning you; you are entering the realms of much emotion, self-evaluation, and over-analysis – I suggest you tread **_**very**_** carefully from now on. :P This chapter is particularly long, and it's important, so be sure to read everything through, mmkay?

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This morning, as I wake up, I feel like I have a hangover.

I feel sluggish and slightly nauseous, my lips feel swollen and too big for my mouth, and my head has that dull pounding in it again, like it always does when I drink a little too much whiskey. Is it really possible to get a hangover from kissing? I run my index finger across my bottom lip, then my top – nothing. The guilty magic of last night is gone, and now I'm left to fix the mess I'd put off cleaning. Is this how Cinderella felt the morning after she ditched her prince at the party? If so, I feel awful for her; it's not a fun feeling. I yawn hugely at this thought and express an internal plea to go back to sleep; I wish it wasn't Thursday.

With a second yawn, I pick myself up and drag myself out of my bed, but this time, I find Anne already awake and in the bathroom, washing her face. This is a surprise; normally, I have to wake her up because she's too damn lazy to get up by herself. I pad over to her, like a child that has a bad cold, and ask her, "Hey Annie; how are you up before me?"

"I dunno," Anne says, turning to me and smiling. "There are days when I can wake up – they come once every, oh, two years or so. Enjoy this one."

I shrug and pick up my toothbrush to brush my teeth – Anne copies me and we brush together, like we used to do over the first few summers we had after spending the year at Hogwarts. I feel guiltier still though, as we go through this unexpected treat – the _one_ day Anne cuts me a break and gets up on her own, I have done something horrid and back-stabbing to her. Fate must really, really hate me; not only did it give me James Potter, but it gave me the guts to do something I'd never dream of doing on the most inconvenient evening in two years.

I finish a few seconds early and spit the toothpaste out into my sink, wishing I could spit all my remorse out with it. Why had I kissed James last night? I still can't figure that out – I don't know what it was that possessed me to very nearly snog him when I had been a kissing virgin otherwise for fifteen years previous to this one. I mean, in one second, we were talking about how James thought he was a bad kisser, and then in the next, we're kissing ourselves. He's always wanted to kiss me – pretty much ever since he caught sight of my mouth – yet the _way_ he did it doesn't seem at all in his character. I'd told him the truth; he'd been very gentle with me, not at all hungry like he used to be. It could have been a very light kiss, too, but something had gone wrong in the never-used kissing department of _my_ brain rather than his – something that made me think that James was the right person to have my first kiss with. It's obviously mistaken; my first kiss is something I'm never going to get back, and now I've wasted it on the one boy it would hurt me to kiss. Great – yet another sign that fate despises me above all other Hogwarts females.

"Lily?" I whip around to see Anne leaning on the doorframe, puzzled as she gazes at me, and I realize with a jolt that I had been standing over my sink with the water running, deep in thought, for about thirty extra seconds. Ugh – why am I so prone to being stupid when I'm worried?

"Sorry," I mutter, turning off the tap and following her out to our dormitory again.

"What's going on, Lils?" she asks me inevitably. "You seem…distracted."

"Do I?" I look through my drawer to find some clothes for the day, hoping I don't look too flustered. Somehow, none of the garments in there look familiar to me – I think I'm going mad, and it's all thanks to one bloody kiss last night!

"Yeah," Anne answers woefully. "That's _my_ drawer."

"Oh." That explains a lot – blushing, I step away from her chest and go to my own. Anne watches me, snickering, and says, "I am your best friend, Lily Evans; I can tell when something's making you anxious, and this is the most stressed I've ever seen you. What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," I say a little too quickly.

She gives me a skeptical look and sits on her bed. "You can tell me anything, Lily. Anything."

I bite my lip and shake my head. "Nothing's wrong," I lie hideously.

Anne sighs. "I'm not going to fight with you, because there's no point in arguing with someone as stubborn as you are, but I trust that soon, you're going to break and tell me what's on your mind – that's why I'm going to lay the subject down to rest at the moment."

I swallow and say, "That sounds lovely, Annie."

"Good." She smiles, stretches out her arms, and then goes through her now-rumpled pile of clothing. "Now what to wear today?"

I nod blankly though she hasn't really asked a yes-or-no question and dig out my favorite purple hooded sweatshirt from my drawer. Anne notices this, and with an air of one holding back her giggles with great difficulty, she asks, "Lily, why are you wearing that?"

"It's my sweatshirt," I say, hugging it. "I love it." Actually, I do love it very much – my mum got it for me from Moscow in Russia when she went a couple of years ago, and it's one of the comfiest things I own. It's also very big, allowing me to hide under it when I don't want to talk to anyone. Anne knows my tendency to wear it when I'm upset, which is why she's instantly curious.

"Lils, if you're wearing that sweatshirt, you know I'm going to want an explanation," Anne says, crossing her arms and attempting to glare me down. "I'll ask one more time – what's wrong?"

"Nothing," I almost whine, taking out a shirt at random to put under the sweatshirt. "I just want to wear it today!"

Anne sighs extremely loudly. "You frustrate me," she accuses.

"_You_ frustrate _me_," I counter. "What's wrong with me wearing my favorite purple sweatshirt, Annie?"

"The fact that you only wear it when you're in a bad mood," she clarifies for the second time. "Lily! Just cooperate with me and tell me what the bloody hell is bothering you! If it's a boy, I'll beat his arse down to Spain if you want me to."

While I'm tempted to see the sight of Anne beating James down to Spain, I decide to keep this to myself and say curtly, "It's nothing, really. If you truly care about me, you're going to stop asking me as of right now, okay? If I want to share this trivial matter with you at a later time, you know I will not hesitate to."

With a defeated sigh, she says, "Oh all right, fine. I'll wait. But do you promise you'll tell me?"

"Yes," I say a little more patiently. "Just not now, okay?"

"Okay." She smiles at me and gives me a hug. "So do you want to skip breakfast and go to class early, or do you want to eat and then leave?"

"Eat, of course," I say. "I'm starved."

Anne laughs. "I knew it, but I thought I'd make sure anyway. Hard-boiled eggs?"

"Four of them," I say, grinning widely.

"All right!" Anne high-fives me and we race down the Great Hall together, flying through the corridors and laughing as we do, and find our way to the Gryffindor table. It is, of course, piled high with the delicious concoctions of the Hogwarts house elves, and immediately, I spot the basket of hard-boiled eggs, sitting near the middle. I point to them, and Anne and I immediately grab it and take a seat by the end, where there are not as many people to bother us. I eye it hungrily and start piling my plate, while Anne simply observes my progress, amused.

"How do you do it?" she inquires wondrously after a few minutes.

"Do what?" I inquire back, my voice muffled by the high percentage of egg in my mouth.

"Eat so much and stay so skinny," she clarifies, enviously looking at my stomach. I look down at it too – I've always been slender, but I never really pay the thought any attention; I eat like a hog, but I'm so used to being a stick anyway that I no longer think about it.

"I dunno," I say.

"Do you work out a lot?"

"When I'm not at school, I take walks in the morning," I clarify.

"How long?"

I consider. "I like to get maybe three or four miles, but sometimes I make do with just two."

Anne nearly falls off of her bench. "I never knew that!"

"I know," I say. "I started doing it over the break last year, and I like walking every day. It's my time to think and reflect, you know? I hate running for time; that's why I walk for as long as I want before my parents wake up."

"That's why." She gives me an irritated look. "I hate walking and exercise in general."

"You're not fat," I say, signaling down to her muscled figure. "You're healthy – I'm a bit _too_ thin."

Anne is about to contradict me, but at that exact moment, she spots James entering the Great Hall with Remus, Sirius, and Peter as his customary entourage. A huge smile cracks on her face, while my stomach just about crashes into my lower intestines, and she grabs my wrist to drag me over to him. She waves pointedly at him, and when he finally catches sight of us, he also smiles, gesturing for us to join him and his friends. Anne does so only too happily, but I'm apprehensive as we reach him at last; I don't want to see James. How am I supposed to talk to him properly?! My throat becomes mysteriously dry, making me wish I had a glass of water or juice or something with me, but I try to forget it as I look to the boys. Sirius is waving sarcastically to me, and since I am not in the mood to deflect him, I wave back, making him beam.

"Evans!" He throws out his arms to me in celebration of my presence, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "My Queen of Homework!"

Peter snickers. "What an apt title."

I shoot him a look, but Sirius throws his head back and laughs. "It's an inside joke, Wormtail – shut up."

"I've been dubbed King of Homework," Remus adds in. "Don't take it too personally, Lily."

This does make me feel better, but Sirius gives him a cross look. "Didn't you hear me say it was a bloody inside joke, Moony?"

"Sorry," Remus says, faking his regret to humor Sirius.

It works; "Okay," Sirius says, forgiving him and forgetting the dispute already. "So, Evans and Weathers; what do you two want?"

"James," Anne says promptly, grinning as she leans forward to kiss him. However, James takes a step back and says, "I thought I was a bad kisser."

"Yes, but I said we'd fix that," she says, laughing. "With _practice_, love. Come here."

His eyes strangely flat, James smiles only with his mouth and kisses her. He doesn't look at me, thank goodness, and I don't look at him either, choosing to let myself become distracted by Sirius and Peter making revolted faces and pretending to shield their eyes from the snogging. Remus catches my eye, and I find myself smiling at him with him at me; he's such a sweet guy – the only Marauder I can actually stand. I'm about to go over to him and talk to him, but Anne chooses that second to break away from James and reprimand Sirius and Peter for being so immature.

"What the hell is wrong with the two of you?" she asks them. "Sirius, you're pretty much the snogging-target for every girl in this school; you, of all people, shouldn't care."

"I don't," Sirius explains. "I just pretend I do."

"I think it's funny," Peter says.

"Have you ever kissed a girl?" Anne inquires, teasing in her voice.

"Might have," Peter says mysteriously.

"He hasn't," Sirius answers for him.

"How can you know for sure?" Peter wants to know – he's rather offended.

"I'm your best friend," Sirius says, rolling his eyes. "I know everything."

James smiles affectionately at his friends, but asks Anne, "So, am I better kisser now?"

"Yeah, you are." She sounds confused. "What did you _do_ overnight?"

The conversation is going to very dangerous waters now – time to change the course. I cough significantly and say, "I need to get to class, then. See you Anne, James, Sirius, Peter, Remus."

"Bye, Your Highness," Sirius says, giving another of his low, sardonic bows.

Peter sniggers at this, but doesn't bid me good-bye, choosing to ridicule Sirius instead. Anne does wave to me, but before James can possibly do a thing in addition, she launches herself at him once again, rendering him incapable of acknowledging me. I'm okay with this though – what is there to say, anyway? Remus also waves to me, and I get the feeling that he would have come with me, had he not been needed to control Sirius and Peter, who still like to act like they're twelve years old. I'm sorry about this – Remus is the only one of them at the moment that I would walk with.

Still, I go it alone out of the Great Hall and up the main stairs, trying hard not to think. Why? It's because every time I think, I think about how crummy I feel, which makes me think about why I feel crummy, which, ultimately, makes me think about James and our kiss again. The feel of his lips, the heat of his hands, the beats of our hearts uniting at one frantic pace…it's all so vivid in my head, and I simply feel even more blameworthy. He really shouldn't like me anymore, after all I've done to him and all the time he's spent with Anne, but that horribly, pitifully vain part of me still expects him to. I know I'm not any better than Anne is, but the thing is, I used to feel like I was, in James's eyes at least. Maybe I tend to think that way because I'm still kind of used to the preferential treatment he used to bestow upon me before, but then again, maybe I'm just a bad person who's trying to flatter herself; right now, I'm kind of leaning towards being a bad person. I mean, really – what good person thinks she's better than her best friend?

I sigh mournfully to myself – what a revelation, especially when I was trying _not_ to get one.

I approach the Transfiguration room at last, feeling like a wilted plant, and open the door. No one is in there at the moment, not even Professor McGonagall, and I'm grateful for it – I can use a bit of alone time. I take my seat in the back of the class and pull out my books and homework – a robot only going through the motions of her day – and chew on my bottom lip. I know I'm going to have to tell Anne tonight, but I just don't know how I'll be able to pull it off. Will she be angry with me? Will she be angry with James? Will she refuse to speak to me after I tell her the truth? I wouldn't be able to stand it if she didn't talk to her – Anne is my best friend, my savior from working too much, and without her, I don't think I'll be able to survive Hogwarts, since she's one of the main reasons I enjoy it so much. I swallow heavily and bite down on my lip harder; how I wish James could have simply left me alone last night.

Uh oh; not this thought-circle again – the I-wish-it-hadn't-happened one. It means I've just hit square one all over again, and I'm trying to move on a little so that I can admit it without feeling like a criminal sentencing herself for execution. Hoping to distract myself, I check the clock on the wall; it informs me that there are ten minutes left until class, which means I only just killed five with these agonizing considerations.

I put my head down on my books, hiding my face from the walls of the room; this is going to be an_ extremely_ long day.

**&&&**

In the afternoon, Anne and I, completely worn-out with mud-splattered clothes after our Herbology lesson, trudge back into the castle together to back to lunch, wishing we could just go back to sleep.

It had been a particularly intense lesson, dealing with Venomous Tantaculas, who were intent on causing fatal injuries upon us poor students who had to handle them; we'd been forced to trim their extra leaves from the stem, and the heads didn't like that. Anne had gotten a small lock of her hair bitten off by the monstrous things while I'd gotten several nasty bites on my hands, and we were both on our way up to clean ourselves up in the dormitory before going down to the Great Hall. Anne is looking mournfully at her hair, which really is looking all that bad, and complaining incessantly about it.

"Lily, look at it," she grumbles, showing me the uneven lengths of her blonde hair. "Isn't it hideous? What am I going to do?!"

"Let it grow back?" I suggest for the seventh time in five minutes.

"But it's so _ugly_," she whines.

"At least you don't have bites," I say, putting out my handkerchief-covered hands. "These hurt like hell, Annie."

"Still," she insists. "You can heal yours in a matter of minutes, but I'm no good at the Hair Restoration Charm – I always go bald every time I try it!"

"I can do it for you, if you like, but you have to please shut up and stop bothering me before I even consider it," I say.

Anne sighs. "Okay, I'll stop – now will you fix me?"

"Yes, I can," I say. "C'mon – let's hurry up and get to the dormitory so I can relieve us of our Herbology scars, shall we?"

"Sounds like plan." Anne and I start sprinting back up to the castle and dash up the stairs to the seventh floor, Anne holding my good hand so that neither of us would get behind the other, and we slow down once we reach the portrait hole. After giving our password ("bobutuber"), we enter the common room and then our dormitory, already tired from the running, seeing as we are not, in any way, athletes. I go to the bathroom with Anne and wash my hand, wrinkling my nose at the blood and slightly green scab that's starting to form on it. Her expression is one of the highest disgust, and she says, "That's disgusting."

"You think I don't know that?" I inquire, pulling out my wand. "Anyway – what was the spell again?" I consider. "Oh, wait, yes!" With a quick cough to clear my throat, I move my wrist in a wacky, circular motion and say, "Vigoratus meus taedium vulnus." Instantaneously, the healthy skin on my hand covers the bleeding parts so that I'm okay again. Pleased with my work, I smugly dangle my hand in Anne's face and say, "See? It's not disgusting anymore."

"Good for you," Anne says. "Now please fix _my_ problem?" She looks pathetically at me, her hand clutching her hair.

I roll my eyes, sweep the air with my hand and wand, and say, "Planto meus saeta decorus." Her hair slowly starts to elongate in the spot I pointed at, and when it's just the right length, I say, "Finite incantatem."

Anne inspects her hair the moment my hand falls to my side, and when she sees that it's perfect, she squeals, squeezes me tightly, and yells, "Thanks, Lily!"

"No problem," I say, smiling slightly at her. "Now come on – I want lunch, I'm starved."

"Again?" Anne looks curiously at me. "Lily, are you a girl or a bottomless pit?"

"A girl with the appetite of a bottomless pit," I say, grinning. "Now come on!"

"Oh, all right then," Anne says, laughing as she lets me take her wrist and run her down to the Great Hall. However, when we're just outside of the huge doors to go in, she suddenly says, "Hey, Lily, didn't we have an essay due tomorrow in Potions?"

"Yeah," I say. "That's why I was working with James yesterday." My stomach tightens when his name creeps through my lips, but I do my best not to show it as I look expectantly at her.

"Damn," she curses. "I haven't done a thing for it, I completely forgot about it!" She goes into a stream of profanities, but when she reaches the end of them, she says, "Hey, Lil, I think I'm going to have to skip lunch today and tomorrow if I want to get that finished for tomorrow afternoon. I'm a slow essay-writer."

"Couldn't you just do it tonight and have me check it during lunch tomorrow?" I want to know.

"No," she tells me sorrowfully. "I can't, because tonight, I have a date with James and I don't want to work on my essay."

"You have a date tonight too?" Somehow, this offends me – James kissed _me_ last night, yet wants to arrange another date with Anne?!

"Yeah, we've been wanting to go out for a few days now," Anne says. "He said today was a good day."

"When did he say that?" I can't help myself – I have to know.

"Like, two or three nights ago," Anne says, clearly mystified by this powerful interest. "Why?"

"Just wondering," I say, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. "So you don't want to have lunch today? Should I eat by myself?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Anne says, her eyes showing me that she means it. "See you afterwards though?"

"Of course," I say. "Bye."

She smiles. "Thanks a million, Lil." With a pat on my shoulder, she walks right back up the stairs which we have just descended from, and a bit of blind panic catches in my throat. I'd been fine so long as I was with Anne and _not_ thinking about what I'd done in her absence yesterday, but now, I'm probably going to see James again in the Great Hall, and I can't trust myself around him anymore. I don't know what to think about him, since I can't possibly like him at all, and seeing him again is not going to help me – not a single bit. I'm hungry though, so I guess I'll just have to take my chances and go in there alone. Great.

Cautiously, I open the door and slip inside the Hall, which is buzzing with talk and the clatter of forks and knives, and look around the Gryffindor table for a place to sit. I see a few empty places I can take, but I also catch sight of the James near the back. His friends are, oddly enough, not with him – it's just him, shoveling lunch into his mouth, clearly in some sort of hurry. It's kind of sickening – I like to eat, but not that fast and certainly not that much. His entire plate is filled; I never knew he ate so much.

Hoping to look like I have a purpose, I take the first unused plate I see and walk over to his part of the table – he has the basket of chicken legs with him, and I am in the mood for chicken. I reach over to grab one, hoping to just take it and leave, but when I do, James finally stops eating up a storm and looks to me. His vision, of course, borrows mine, and I immediately freeze, lost in the many shades of hazel I see; oh gosh.

"Hey Lily," he says, his tone perfectly pleasant and on-the-surface. "Hungry?"

"Yeah," I say lamely, holding up the chicken leg and putting it on my plate. "I like chicken."

"That's nice," he says, his eyes now searching me since they've found me. "I like chicken too."

I smile nervously, but don't say anything for several seconds; to bridge the embarrassing sort of silence, James continues on to ask, "Where's Anne?"

"Starting her Potions essay," I say. "She hasn't written anything for it, and apparently, you have a date with her tonight, which doesn't leave her much time to work on it."

This quiets him for a moment, his eyes now undecipherable, but then he says, in the same easy tone, "You can tell her that we can go out another time if she has to write that essay – I don't want to get in the middle of that."

"She won't cancel it," I tell him. "She's too stubborn for that; she plans to do it now and then tomorrow at lunch as well."

James smiles. "That Anne…"

"She's so incredibly annoying, but I adore her," I say sincerely.

"She adores you too," he says. "I hear a lot about you."

He does? "What kinds of things do you hear?" I ask.

"How funny you can be," he says. "The little things you guys do together; how she teases you about your homework addiction; the way you snort when you laugh too hard. Those kinds of things."

"Oh," I say with relief.

"Why, what did you think she'd tell me?" James is interested now – I don't like where this conversation might end up going.

"I dunno," I say. "She's my best friend – she knows me inside and out."

James studies my face for a couple more seconds before saying, "Here, sit with me." He gestures to the spot across from him which I'm standing above.

Instantaneously, my brain goes into alert mode – no way should I sit with James Potter. I shouldn't be alone with him at all, even if I'm in the Great Hall with lots of people around me – they're not paying me any attention, and if James kissed me in front of them, they'd never see it. That's why I shake my head no and say, "I'm just eating and running today – sorry."

"You can eat all the chicken you want," he teases.

I half-smile, but shake my head again. "Sorry."

"Are you still upset about yesterday?" he inquires, his voice now low and concerned. "Because if you are, I really am sorry about it – you must know that."

I bite my lip; "It's okay, but I really do need to go." I put the chicken drumstick back into the basket and say, "I suppose I'll see you later then; bye."

His eyes bore into mine once more, but I swallow, trying to let my strength flow through me, and make myself walk away from him. James doesn't try to stop me, but I think I can still feel his eyes on my back, watching me leave. To see if this is true, I allow myself one look back at him, but he's not looking at me after all – he's gone back to his food, eating as though I hadn't even been there. I don't know why but I can feel hot tears brim up in my eyes anyway, threatening to spill out and run down my face – what the hell is wrong with me? I leave the Great Hall, my appetite gone, and sit on the foot of the entrance stairs, trying to sort out the wild array of emotions that are starting to take me over. What is it about James that makes me fall apart whenever I'm near him? What is about him that makes me want to know everything that makes him tick?

Now that I have nothing more to lose and no witnesses to see what's going on in me, I can be honest with myself about this situation – there's just so much more to that James than what meets the eye. It's no longer what I _know_ about James that's annoying me; it's more what I _don't_ know. I used to know James about as well as I know Anne – he was witty, flirty, occasionally sensitive, charismatic, atrociously cheeky and arrogant, and though he was a little rough around the edges, he would have been likeable, had it not been for his irrational (more like never-ending) affection for me. Now, on the other hand, everything he says and does makes no sense, especially when he kissed me – he's like a favorite book that became waterlogged; though some of the familiar story still remains, pretty much all that is readable are the memories, while the new meaning is no longer logical by any means. Right now, I'm torn between the choice of resurrecting that book further and simply forgetting about what I already know – should I start over, like he did, and try to at least be his friend even with our dirty little secret, or should I make a bigger effort to cut him out of my life? To just about anyone, it's an easy question with an easy answer – resurrect. It's not that easy for _me _though; I can't just _do_ that. I'm older now, and things are different. I can never go back to the days when everything was innocent, so I can never answer that question as easily as I should be able to. That's one of the biggest nadirs of growing up – what I did in the past is going to stay with me and haunt me no matter what I do, and there's no way of changing that.

I sigh and hold my arms around my middle, feeling horribly fragile – it really is amazing, the effect that one boy has on me. I've never thought this way before, nor have I ever questioned my own personality so much; it's like being a younger teenager all over again. I started to grow more aware of my personality when I was thirteen – that was the closest I'd ever felt to what I'm feeling now. I thought I was over though, which makes me wonder if I'm truly as mature as I think I am. Maybe I still have some growing up to do – more self interrogation to force myself into. Who knew it only took one James Potter to make me realize it? Life is so weird that way.

I hug my knees, bringing them into my chest, and lay my cheek on them, my hair falling around my legs; I thought I was a soaring, resilient, indestructible wall, but I suppose I was only a brittle one – all it took was a strong enough stone to knock me down and expose the desires, reflections, and painful retrospections I thought I'd left behind for good.

**&&&**

All through the afternoon, I become conscious of the fact that I am now starting to become the thing I never, ever expected to be – a coward.

Yes, I'm a coward, through and through; I only have four classes after lunch, and in all of them, I didn't as much as _look_ at James. Anne couldn't understand why I wouldn't associate with him, of course, but James obviously did. He didn't tell her, which I did like, but Anne kept getting more and more curious as to what was going on between us. I kept telling her that she would have to ask me after school ended so that I could give her a proper answer without anyone around us to listen, but that didn't stop her from pestering me about it anyway. When the last bell rang, releasing us from Potions, Anne took quick action – she dragged me out of the room at once, bumped me up the stairs, pushed me into our dormitory, and sat me down on my bed before I had time to even ask her what she was trying to accomplish here.

"Speak," she commands.

I take a breath and say, "It's awful, what I did, Annie – do you promise to just let me tell it how it happened and not get upset with me?"

"Yeah, of course," she say swiftly. "Now spill."

It's obvious that she is bubbling over with curiosity that she must release, which is why she's making every effort she can to rush me, but I refuse to be rushed – this event, no matter how small it may seem to someone else, is monumental to me, and telling it in thirty seconds is not how I intend to fill her in.

"Well," I say, choosing my words carefully in my head. "You know how it is when you go out to do one thing, and then something else happens which you didn't expect?"

"Yeah," Anne says uncomprehendingly.

"And then even more things build up on top of that one wrong move, which gives you this enormous mess you feel like you're drowning in?"

"That's happened to me," she says. "But what does it have to do with what you've done?"

"Everything," I say tearfully. "Okay, so you know how you called James a bad kisser yesterday evening?"

"Oh yeah, I remember that," she says with a grin. "I was joking, in case you didn't pick up on that already."

"James didn't pick up on it," I say.

"What do you mean?" Anne asks, her eyebrows knitted together as she tries to figure out what I'm talking about.

I take a moment to keep myself calmed down and say, "After you left, I was looking over James's essay for him, but he was thinking about something. I asked what it was, and he wanted to know if he was a bad kisser."

Anne laughs – I envy her ability to find a joke in all of this. "Seriously? Oh, my poor baby; I'll have to assure him I was kidding later."

"He was kind of worried about it, so I would agree with that, but I'm not finished yet," I say. "So he thinks he's a bad kisser – I decided to offer my opinion on the matter."

"Oh no," she says, smiling impishly. "What did you say?"

"I said he was too violent – he should be a little gentler," I say, summing up whatever it was that I had said in a couple of words.

She hadn't been expecting that – she gives me a very mystified look. "And how did he react?"

"He just kind of mulled it over," I tell her honestly. "We talked a bit about how girls he's previously dated liked his more violent style and how I found that obscene, and then he starts staring at me. His eyes – I wish you could have seen them, Annie. He's never been that open with me," I say, recalling the image of his gaze in my mind's eye.

"And?" she prompts, evidently dying for the next part of the story.

"I was caught up in the way he was looking at me," I say. "Then before I know it, he's right up in my face. I didn't make a single move before it, I swear! And he asks me, 'Like this?' He wants to know if he's being adequately gentle of course, so I say yes, since he hasn't jumped on me or molested me or something, and then…" I let my voice rise up gradually in volume until the word 'then,' when I let it linger in the air, too distressed with myself to finish the sentence. Anne puts two and two together in her head – I can practically see the cogs working in her mind – but when she gets it, something shuts down behind her eyes.

"You kissed him?" she guesses, keeping her tone carefully emotionless.

"No, _he_ kissed _me_, Annie, and I'm so, so, so sorry about it," I burst out.

Anne stays very, very still for a moment, but then completely and utterly startles me when she throws herself on me in a delighted hug. "Congratulations, Lily!"

I almost start crying right there, I'm so confused. "What?"

She lets go of me and looks at my face excitedly. "You kissed James, Lils! I'm so proud of you!"

I can feel the horror written all over my face. "I think I'm missing something here – you're not mad?"

"Hell no, I'm not!" She gets up and starts dancing around the room, her happiness unmistakable. "You got your first kiss, Lily Evans, and it was with James, as I had predicted for all this time while you thought I was crazy! Who's right _now_, huh, Lils? ME, that's who!"

"He's your boyfriend though," I remind her, still stunned. "Shouldn't you be mad at him for kissing me?"

"No, of course not, silly." Anne smiles sweetly at me, every bit of glee on her face truer than any emotion I've ever seen on her. "I've been waiting for this for ages – now I can break up with him."

"Okay, now I'm _really_ missing something," I say, my head spinning with the sudden turn in the discussion. "What's going on here?"

Anne giggles wryly. "I suppose it's time for me to explain everything to you, then."

"Yes, that might help just a little bit," I say pointedly.

"All right." Anne clears her throat and begins by saying, "Lily, do you remember when you first told me I was in love with James and you started trying to push us together?"

"Yes, I remember that," I say.

"And do you remember what happened on the first date I ever went on with him?"

"How can I forget?" I ask smugly. "You proved me right – you were in love with him."

Anne rolls her eyes. "Okay, yes, I did like him a lot after the first date. I liked him even more as time went on, but I'd always known it wasn't going to last. I told you before – I don't do long-term relationships. I knew that I'd have this enormous lust for him for a little while, but it would all start to fade; then I'd want to finish whatever it was that we had. I knew that if I went out with him and kept you with me sometimes, he'd notice you – he was still in love with you and it was obvious in every single word he said about you, whether it was a casual reference or a major conversation point. All I had to do was make you see how much you really cared. That was the reasoning behind me leaving you alone sometimes, including today at lunch; the mission all along, even when I liked him was to make you fall for him like I knew you would and then break up with him to give you your space. Now, I can see that the mission has been accomplished – you kissed him. I can break up with him within the next few days, and you guys can be together – my work here is done." Her grin is wide, now that she's explained her entire, twisted plan to me, but I'm still in full shock. She did all that just for me?!

It takes me a few seconds to regain my powers of speech, but the moment my voice box decides to cooperate with me, I immediately screech, "Annie, why the hell did you do that?!" and I spank her hard on her arm.

"OW!" Anne yelps, rubbing her arm. "Gee, thanks Lily – that was an extremely bitchy thing for you to do!"

"I'm sorry, Anne, but why did you do all of that when I was trying to hook _you_ up with him?" I ask her, feeling tears in my eyes. "All I was trying to do was make you see how much you like James, and you were working the whole time to make me see how much you thought _I_ liked him."

"Lils, he's not my type," she says gently, now forgiving me for hitting her as she places the arm I smacked around my shoulder. "He's a lovely boy, but there's no real spark, no _connection_ between us. I know I've told you this before; he can get along with anyone, but it takes someone special to get into a relationship with him, and honey, I'm not that person – _you_ are."

"I don't love him though," I whisper. "He kissed me and all I could do was freak out and think about how much I was sinning, kissing my best friend's boyfriend."

"Okay, so that wasn't ideal, but you can't tell me you felt _nothing_ when you kissed him," Anne says, her voice still tender. "Didn't you feel anything?"

If I was a good person, I would tell my friend the truth and say yes, I did enjoy it, even if I shouldn't have. However, today, I clarified for myself that I am, in fact, not a good person at all, so I go along with this conclusion and lie through my teeth by saying, "No, I didn't feel anything."

This puts Anne into a deep thought and she sighs, pursing her lips as she looks to the floor. "Well, still – I'm sure you did, and that's why I'm going to break up with him, probably tomorrow."

"No, don't," I plead. "Annie, I don't want you to break up with him at all – can't you please just do what you know you want to do and stay with him? For my sake?"

She shakes her head. "I'm breaking up with him, Lily."

"But you love him," I almost whimper.

Anne's smile is lenient. "Maybe I did, but it's nothing compared to what you feel. When you care about someone, Lils, you have to think about them before you even start to think about yourself, and that's what I'm trying to do – can you please cooperate?"

I look at her for a very, very long time before I finally say, "I never knew you would do anything like this for me, especially when the success of the plan depends on me seriously falling in love with someone."

She shrugs, her expression modest. "You're the only one I'd ever do it all for, but if you tell anyone, I'll be forced to beat your arse."

I actually manage to laugh, despite the surge of emotion filtering through me. "Deal, Annie."

"Okay," she says, hugging me once more.

"You're not going to break up with him though, are you?" I question her one last time.

"I thought we already went through this, Lily," she says exasperatedly. "Yes, I am going to break up with him, and there's not a single thing you can bloody do about it!" She thumps me on the back and says, "However, I do have one last date I'm going to go on with him, so you try not to do something stupid while I'm gone, all right? I'll see you later."

With this, she gets up and leaves right away, not bothering to let me say a thing to her about breaking up with James, and I am left on my bed, as bewildered as a turtle might be if its shell was yanked off of it. Even though we finally came clean on what we were trying to do for the past few weeks, I still can't believe everything that was said. We had been matchmaking each other at the same time, and with the same guy, a guy I'd hated since I was eleven! Oh, the irony of life; who knew I was ever going to be part of such a mess?

One of the other big things that astonished me tonight, however, was not only the irony, but Anne's sensitivity tonight. I'm not saying she's an insensitive person, but she has never, ever tried to do anything as thoughtful as what she admitted to a few minutes back. It's so uncharacteristically clever/dedicated/sweet of her to think such a plan through and seriously execute it – not many people I know would be able to do that. I admire her patience with me, her commitment, and her self-control – no matter what she says, I know that there's still a part of her that adores him, and she's trying to block it out so that I can take James. I don't know what to do about it right now, seeing as my brain is having a hard time taking everything in even now, but I know that I'll figure it out probably within the next couple of days – before Anne has time to break up with James – so that I have a good argument as to why Cinderella should just stay put and let her fairytale continue the way it's supposed to.

I sigh as I lay back on my bed, my hair fanned out across my pillow, and let my eyelids start to droop, even though it's way too early to be doing anything like this – it's been a _very_ strange day.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, I'm hoping I didn't make too many typos in there, but wow; that an eventful chapter! Ha, I didn't expect it to get so long or so vital when I started writing it, but hey, that's the fun of writing – never knowing where you'll let the characters take you next. :) Hope you enjoyed that – I know it was interesting for me to write for sure – and, as always, don't forget to review. :P**

**Extra Note: The spell Lily used to fix her Herbology bites, Vigoratus meus taedium vulnus, means Heal my disgusting wound in Latin. The spell used to fix Anne's hair, Planto meus saeta decorus, means Make my hair beautiful in Latin. I looked them both up on a free translator, since I don't know how else to make up spells. xD  
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	12. Of Breaking Up With James Potter

**A/N: Ugh; I totally screwed this chapter up, in my opinion. The flow just wasn't **_**right**_**, which you'll see once you start reading, and I just hate it. Still, you might not, since you all are way too nice to me when I don't deserve it; so, as always, read, review, and (try to) enjoy.

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I really don't know how I managed to fall asleep the other night, because I was tossing and turning constantly, too restless to let myself drift off into la-la land like I usually do. Come to think of it, I don't even know how I got myself ready this morning, Friday, either; I was barely half-conscious the entire time, unable to recall anything I did even five minutes after I'd done it, my mind whirling with the effect of thoughts many more important points, the most dominant being Anne's notion of breaking up with James in the next couple of days. It seems silly for me to be obsessing so much over something that hasn't even happened yet – especially so early in the morning, when it should be illegal to think – but that's just the sort of person I am. I do all the worrying first, and then feel like there was nothing to go crazy about _after_ everything is said and done.

This morning, I was in another robot sort of mode – I just sort of dressed, groomed, and walked out of the door in ten minutes flat, a new personal record; Anne was only just starting to rise when I was double-checking that the contents of my bag were all the way I wanted them to be. I go down to the Great Hall on my own, stressing like the moron I can so often be, and try to think up new points of argument to keep Anne together with James – they are _meant_ to be, truly _meant_ to be, unlike me and James, so it's up to me to make sure they stick to this concept, something Anne in particular is doing a very poor job of adhering to. She's just so damn stubborn – what's a girl to do with her? It's a question without an answer, yet here I am, being the stupid fool trying to figure one out anyway. It only goes to show how much I care about her.

I take a seat at the Gryffindor table when I arrive to it and select a roll from the basket near me, which I immediately start to smother in butter; I need brain food, and carbohydrates are usually the best choices. I chew on it, deep in thought, and take some orange juice as well, to wash it down. Orange juice is bliss – I enjoy the feel of it running down my throat as I strain my head to come up with a decent case. I find that I'm still sleepy though, which is probably why I'm not able to think straight; how absolutely wonderful. I scan the table, watching the Gryffindors of all ages eat their breakfasts with the usual raucous laughter and violent hand gestures, and when I get to the other end, my eyes settle on Remus, James, and Peter, who are being entertained by an evidently hilarious story from Sirius, who is making a bizarre face and flailing his arms like a drunkard for reasons I'm probably not going to want to inquire further into. My gaze goes to each boy in question, thinking about what I know about them, hoping that some useful thought will be spawned from the exercise – otherwise, what's the point, right?

First, I look to Remus. Oh, Remus…he's such a lovely boy. He's just so sensitive, so down-to-earth, and so simply _adorable_ in the small things he does, like how he scratches his head when he doesn't understand what's going on or how he unconsciously twitches when someone says the word 'anaphylactic,' for whatever reason. Yes, I am only his friend, and I don't want to be anything else, but there's nothing wrong with having a bit of lust for him, is there? I don't think so.

Next, I let myself stare at Sirius, who has a new expression on his face, though it's not much better than the first. My first thought when I see Sirius is that he's obnoxious to every single degree known to man (and a few known to monkeys, I reckon), but when I force myself to _really_ see him, I am forced to admit, in the safety of my own mind, that he's kind of handsome. It's that classic sort of beauty – coal-black hair with gentle curls that's slightly too long and framing his face; dark, perpetually-animated eyes; an angular sort of face that vaguely reminds one of some gorgeous film-actor, but is striking nonetheless. He's also quite animated, which does make for a certain admiration, if not attraction, though it's slightly diminished by the fact that he's shallow, arrogant, incapable of a single serious thought (despite his name – haha, bad pun), and ignorant; if he got rid of those four characteristics, I'd probably like him a lot more.

Peter is the third to hold a spot in my field of vision – my next victim, if worded differently. He's not so bad, as I watch him go into peals of laughter over whatever Sirius had been saying, but I do notice his capability of single-handedly eating nearly every dish within his grasp. Granted, I do pretty much the same thing, but it's somehow different when Peter does it – he's as obnoxious when he eats as Sirius is when he's talking. I can't help but be a bit repulsed by his steady consumption during mealtimes, but otherwise, he seems to be quite loyal to his Marauder colleagues, and though he might not be a very bright fellow, he makes up for it by his easy-going personality and capability of being cheerful when none of his friends are.

Ah, then the last of the lot, James – the mystery of them all. While Remus, Sirius, and Peter are easy to understand and easy to read, James just isn't; he has the air of secrecy Sirius only wishes he possessed, and it's a pity, because when I think I know him, I find that I don't. Right now, he is laughing, like the other three, but there's something distinctive about him, and it's his carefulness. He's not…I don't know, not _free_ enough with his laughter. Something in him is holding back – it's most apparent in his eyes – and I don't know why. I try to look at other aspects of him, to maybe see if there's anything else in his mannerisms that suggests a reason to his caution, but, inevitably, I find nothing useful. I hate that I can't really say anything about him – I simply don't know him well enough yet, and it's annoying the hell out of me.

I then let my eyes un-focus to see the group as a whole – four, nicely-matured teenagers, laughing and enjoying what little of their childhood they have left – and I sigh to myself; I can't believe I've just spent so much time analyzing _them_. They're the _Marauders, _for goodness sake – they are notorious for doing all the things I never liked to see done, so they should not hold so much attention from me; but at the same time, maybe it's those stupid things they do that get my attention anyway, whether it's positive or negative. Was that the intent all along – to unwittingly get attention by doing what people never liked them to do, but doing them so likeably that it was impossible to truly despise them? It seems to be the case, though I still have the lingering hunch that the part about them being mischievous likeably kind of happened by accident – only those four would be able to pull it off properly, I realize.

My thoughts are, however, interrupted somewhat cruelly by Anne's entrance into the Great Hall at this very moment – she sits herself down next to me, her expression bright. "Good morning, Lily!" she chirps, waving her hand in my face. "How are you?"

"Annie?" My head snaps back into the present and I face her. "Oh, hey; and, for the record, I'm not okay, and it's entirely your fault."

Anne wrinkles her nose in confusion. "Okay, that's _one_ way to say hello, I guess."

"I'm sorry," I apologize, backing up a little. "To answer your question – no, I'm not okay. As to it being your fault, it kind of is."

"Why?" Anne wants to know. "I've only been awake half an hour; I don't quite know what I could have possibly done in that short amount of time."

"You want to break up with James," I accuse her. "That's not allowed."

"You're _still_ freaking out about that?" Anne throws her head back and laughs. "Why the hell are you so fanatical about it? He's going to be girlfriend-less very, very soon; you'll have your opening to make a move! You should be thrilled; I just caught you full-out _staring_ at him right now."

"I was not staring at them on my own accord, for your information," I argue hotly. I can feel myself blush – was I really that obvious when I was looking their way? "I was staring at them because I was trying to see if there was something about them that I had been missing for the past five and a half years; I found nothing I hadn't already seen." Yes, I'm lying through my teeth here, but what else can I do? I have a dignity to defend, thank you very much.

Anne snorts. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." She takes a roll out of the basket I'd also helped myself from and eats it without butter – Anne's a part-time health freak. "You're totally in love," she continues, her voice muffled because of the chewing she's trying to accomplish at the same time. "I mean, it's so damn _obvious_; if this was in one of your romance books, you'd catch it right away."

"Don't talk with your mouth full," I mutter, unwilling to hear this spiel. Apparently, Anne has already beat me in the race to find a new angle for convincing the other girl that she's better for James, and I don't particularly want to hear it unless I have something to counter her with.

Of course, _Anne_ doesn't think the way I do about such matters; oh no, no, no, no, _no_. My lovely best friend _Anne_ either can not or will not pick up on my mood at the moment (I think it's the latter of the two choices) and swallows enormously to clear her mouth before saying, "Seriously! I swear; if your situation was in a film or a book, you'd be like, 'Why the hell aren't they together yet?' And then the ending would come with the girl being too cowardly to tell her man she's in love with him, and you'd be weeping for days because you saw the happy ending when the character didn't. This is how life _is_ for you right now, Lily;_ you are the pathetic character who won't take her love for what it is and I am the reader who is egging you on to force you to see it!_"

"I really don't need to hear this," I say shortly, rising from my seat, utterly frustrated. "I don't want to and I don't have to – quit preaching to me about things you don't understand."

"Ah, anger," Anne says, smiling strangely reminiscently. "Second stage of the five stages of grief, which you're going through over James. You've already done denial – 'he's not the right one for me!' – and soon, I expect, you're going to be bargaining; 'let me like _any_ boy so long as it's not James!'" She giggles. "Just skip over the drama and go to acceptance, won't you? It's going to be okay, so long as you listen to me and go along with the world-class advice I'm providing you with."

I roll my eyes and put my hands on my hips, something I haven't done since I was ten. "Stop it, Annie! I'm not in love, and in the highly unlikely – nearly impossible – event that I _was_ in love with him, _he _is no longer in love with _me_."

Anne had been drinking orange juice, but the moment she hears me say this, she sprays it out like a fountain right out in her empty plate. "_What_?!" she screams, so loudly that people turn to stare. "Lily, you're _crazy_!"

I give her the most innocent look I can, and she continues incredulously, "How can you possibly say that with a straight face? Of course he's still in love with you! He never stopped! Like you, he can pretend that he has, but he hasn't; you know all that, deep down. Just _tell_ him, and everything will be as it should be. I'm going to break up with him some time today, and the moment I do, you'd better go up to him and tell him everything – including the real reason for my dating him. Got it?"

"No!" I wail. "I don't love him, you do, and he loves you, not me! Can't you please just leave it the way it is?"

Anne sighs in the most aggravated way I've ever heard from her. "Making you listen to reason is about as easy as convincing a pig to wear a tutu, Lily Evans, so you know what? I'm going to simplify it even further for you, and then I refuse to hear another word out of your mouth that goes against me. Do we understand each other?"

"Fine," I grumble.

"Okay." She clears her throat. "I _like_ James – I do not _love _him. James _likes_ me – he does not _love_ me. You _love_ James – you do not _hate _him. James _loves _you – he does not _hate_ you. That's all there is to it, Lils; get it?"

I bite my lip. "You're wrong," I inform her. "You'd better not break up with him – do _you_ understand _me_?" I don't wait for an answer, however – I merely stalk out of the Great Hall, irritated beyond belief at my best friend, and make my way to the Transfiguration classroom, where I plan to stew for a little while longer. It's just so _frustrating_, to have someone so readily doubt what I'm saying – I've always been the one who's right, who talks reason, so why isn't she listening to me?

I blow a stray strand of my hair out of my face with a sullen breath; I swear it, if Anne breaks up with James today like she mentioned she would, I will personally ensure that she gets severely and suddenly punished.

**&&&**

Throughout the morning, I manage to actually forget about Anne's planned fate for James. I don't know how I did it, but I did; I lost myself in whatever else was thrown in front of me, and Anne, of course, wasn't stupid enough to bring the topic about again. I don't generally see James during the day, except Transfiguration, Potions, lunch, and Charms, and as three of those are in the afternoon, I don't have any living reminders to jog my memory. This all changes, though, when I get to the lunchroom with Anne, and my eyes jump straight to the four Marauders, who are all there, as usual, eating at the moment, saving their laughter for when their plates are clean. It's rather strange, how I've started to notice them so much more than I normally do, but I can't help it – I'm scared for what Anne is going to do to James. I may not adore James from the bottom of my heart, but I would never wish ill on anyone, including him, and I don't want to see him get hurt. Though Anne won't say it, he _does_ love her more than he loves me, and seeing her break it off for no particular reason might trigger another mood in James that he – and the world – is not yet ready to see. These considerations are dominantly on my mind as Anne chooses a spot _nea_r the Marauders, but not close enough for them to see us, and sit us down; I know that I have to talk to her about it.

"Anne, do you trust me?" I ask her, out of the blue, as she reaches for a sandwich.

"'Course I do, Lil," Anne says, selecting a piece of chicken at the last second instead of the sandwich and placing it on her plate. "Why?"

"Because I need to know," I say. "So you're sure you trust me, no matter what I say, no matter what I do?"

"Um, yeah," Anne says, taking a bite of her food. "Again, why?"

"Like I said, I needed to know," I repeat. "I'm sure now, so I'm going to say this – Annie, if you trust me and if you care at all about James Potter, you won't break up with him today."

Anne drops her chicken in frustration, her eyes amused despite her expression. "I know I've asked you this before, but why the hell are you so damn obsessed with my breaking up with James?"

"Look at him, Annie, just look at him," I say, gesturing over to the boys' section of the table. "He's happy! Do you want to be the person that completely ruined it for him? I've caused him enough misery over the years – now you need to be there for him for as long as you can."

"Lily, you haven't caused him misery," she says gently. "Sure, you screwed a few things up here and there, but he could just as easily say he caused _you_ misery over the years too. You were subjected to flirting, jokes, pranks, and countless corny pick-up lines for around five years – if that's not misery, I don't know what is. Besides, I've been there for as long as he needs me – he doesn't need me anymore. He'll be depressed for a little while, sure, but he'll get over it quickly, I can almost guarantee it. So nice try, but it's not good enough – I'm probably going to break up with him within the next few hours, because I know what to do now."

I bite my lip. "You're going to regret it, Anne. I know you are."

"Well, that's just a risk I'm willing to take, right?" She puts her hand comfortingly on my shoulder. "There are all kinds of risks involved with a relationship, Lils, and we accepted them the day we started going out; the chance of an unnecessary break-up is included in the list." She sighs, and says, "Now, I've got to go – I'm going to work on my essay in the library, which is going to depress me more than this conversation has, but I've got to do it at some point, right? See you later." She gives me a final thump on the back and leaves me at the table, stewing in my own ridiculous qualms without her. I really wish I could somehow stop doing that – it's getting to the point where it's even annoying _me_.

In dissatisfaction, I let my attention return to the breakfast in front of me and try unsuccessfully to stop mulling over the conversation I'd just had with Anne, but to my very great aggravation, James taps my head to get my attention and occupies her vacated seat for a moment to talk to me not even five minutes later. How wonderful.

"Hey Lily," he says, smiling at me, unaware of the foolish, childish irritation swelling up in me.

"Hey," I say shortly, my bad mood shining obviously through the single word. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," he says casually. "Just wanted to know where Anne was; I have to ask her something."

"Anne went upstairs to work on the Potions essay she didn't do," I say, smirking. "I would suggest not bothering her right now." Even though I'm still unhappy with his presence beside me in a situation that would fare better without him, I must say I'm impressed with how I'm handling him – I'm not shaking, I'm not freaking out, and I'm not even being that mean to him. It's definitely a validly fantastic start to the whole being-nicer-to-James idea Anne has been trying to shove down my throat lately.

"Oh, okay." He laughs then, for reasons I can't imagine until he speaks once more. "She's so funny, that Anne; she never ceases to amaze me." James smiles to himself for another, final moment, but says slightly hesitantly after it, "Can _you_ help me then, Lil?"

"Yeah, sure," I say nonchalantly, still marveling at my lack of nerves. Where has this coolness been when I needed it? "What do you need, Potter?"

"Well, first off, I need you to stop calling me Potter," James says.

"Why?" I'm genuinely puzzled as I look to him for his answer.

"You always made it a big point to call me by my first name, because you felt that last names were too impersonal – I liked that," James clarifies for me.

"Oh," I say, at a mysteriously sudden loss for words.

He nods, seeming to take my silence as agreement to resume calling him James. "Yeah, but my real question was this – the Marauders and I had been planning a trip to Hogsmeade at around midnight, just for the hell of it, and we wanted to know if she was interested in joining us. You're also free to come, if you feel like it," he adds courteously at the end.

"Oh," I say again. "I'm sure Anne will want to go with you, but you'll have to ask her in person – don't rely on me. And I don't want to accompany the five of you, thank you for asking."

"Sure thing," he says, his tone of voice laid-back and easy. "But if you change your mind, let one of us know; preferably me." He smiles at me one last time – he seems to be in a very smiley mood today – and says, "I'm going to go find Anne now, then." He gives my shoulder a squeeze. "See you, Lily."

With this, he gets up from the bench and leaves the Great Hall, presumably to talk to Anne, and I am by myself again. I don't mind though – I finish eating quickly and leave myself to read the novel I want to finish in the library – but I'm still quite pleased with my progress; I didn't fall apart! I feel absolutely brilliant; I can feel the broad grin on my face as I walk down the corridor to the library and I think it has every right to be there. I'm conquering whatever stupid, nameless emotions I have for James Potter, and that's always a good thing, isn't it?

I enter the library, pick the first empty table in sight, and immediately sit down to read, losing myself in the world of the book – reality is no longer of any interest to me, and I will agonize about it again when I actually have to.

**&&&**

I think that it's become a new unwritten law: just as it seems that my anxiety is soothed for good, something simply _must_ go wrong.

It's the official the pattern of my life these days, really – bad emotional timing. I mean, after lunch today, I was in a rather good mood, both because I had a conversation with James Potter that didn't psych me out and I got some unexpected reading time, but now that I'm entering Potions, my last class of the day and my second encounter with James this afternoon, something no longer feels right. It's this _feeling_ I have in the pit of my stomach; it's nagging at me and telling me to keep a watchful eye over my miniature world because there's some aspect of it that's screwed up. I wonder what part it is – I'll ask Anne about it. I cross into the room, wave to Slughorn, who is refilling the student's store cupboard, and dump my bag down at my table and cauldron. Anne has already taken her seat next to me, but she looks subdued, and her eyes are very slightly pink – has she been crying? I sit down next to her, my curiosity surely displayed all over my face, and she looks up at me.

"Hey," she says softly, as though from a distance.

"Annie, are you all right?" I ask her at once. Internally, though, I'm groaning; whatever Anne has done wrong is probably the reason for the sense of foreboding that's closing in on me right now. At least I figured it out quickly, right?

"Yeah, of course," she says, putting on a valiant effort to smile. "Why?"

I shake my head and put my hand on her shoulder. "I know you better than anyone, Anne; I know when you're upset about something, so tell me."

"I'm that obvious?" She looks desperately into my face, obviously crestfallen. "I really look that sad?"

"Yes, you do, sweetie, which is why I'm asking you to explain it," I say. "Can you make my life easier and just say it?"

She sighs heavily and pushes her hair out of her face. "Well, you're going to figure it out sooner or later anyway, so I might as well tell you now." She pauses for a moment to gather herself and then says in a little more than a whisper, "I broke up with James when he came to find me during lunch."

I nearly fall out of my chair. "You did _what_?"

"I broke up with him, like I told you I would," she says, her voice stronger now that the facts are out.

"Annie!" I shake her shoulders, making her head loll around as though her neck is made of rubber. "Why the bloody fuck did you do that?"

Despite the situation, a corner of Anne's mouth goes upward into a strange sort of smirk. "I've never heard you use that word before, Lily," she comments.

"I'm bloody furious, that's why," I snipe, my voice low and deadly. "Give me a word-by-word, expression-by-expression break-down of what you did. Right now."

"All right, all right." Resentfully, Anne wriggles so that my hands drop from her shoulders and she begins to tell her tale. "See, he came up to the common room to ask me to go on a midnight escapade with his friends tonight, but I told him to sit – I had to talk to him. It was the perfect time to break it off, Lil – we were alone, and I knew I'd wanted do it some time today. So we sat and I started off with the usual garbage – I really did enjoy our time together, you're a really lovely person, I'm terribly sorry it has to be this way – but then I set it to him straight; I was done with whatever it was we had together. He was silent for a minute, and he looked like he was going to cry or something, but then he was totally cool about it; 'Okay, that's fine,' was what he said. 'I'm sorry too.' He gave me a quick kiss and left the portrait hole – just like that. I didn't see him again after it."

I almost want to cry myself, seeing how close Anne is to losing it. "And what about you? Were you 'totally cool' about it too?"

"I tried to be," she says. "I really did, but the moment he was gone, I don't know what was going on – I felt like I'd made a big mistake."

"You did!" I burst out. "You did make a bloody horrible mistake, and you'd better fix it!"

"No," she says steadily. "Lily, I've done this before; it always hurts the first couple of days, but you get over it. We'll be fine." She's trying her best to make herself sound convincing, since she'd been on this tangent ever since she first formulated the plan for breaking up with him, but I can tell that Anne doesn't mean it anymore. Her words are hollow, lacking any kind of convincing factor, and I can see it all the way through her. I sigh carefully and put my arms out to hug her, and she comes without a fight; she rests her cheek on my shoulder and lets me pull her in close to me. I can feel the softness of her hair, the warm weight of her body against mine – she feels more like a giant, huggable doll than anything else. She does let go after about a minute, but I can tell that she's only doing it because class is going to start and when James comes in the door, she doesn't want him to see her broken over the break-up she had requested. Though I'm mad at her for not listening to me, I do feel a twang of respect for her – she's doing a lot better with this than I would be. Anne has always been resilient; I know she'll get over it, but I still wish she hadn't ended her relationship with James. It's not that I don't have any faith in him, but I don't think he was ready to leave her yet; like Remus had said, Anne was what he needed, and she's taken herself away too early. I decide to watch him closely when he comes into the classroom; I want to know how he's going to act.

The bell rings a few seconds after my decision, and with the bell come Remus, Sirius, and Peter – all three Marauders except James. Remus takes his seat rapidly, embarrassed, but Peter and Sirius take their time, to which Slughorn looks quite disapproving. He puts his bloated hands on his enormous hips and says, "Late again, boys. Now where's that Potter? Did you forget him somewhere or something?"

"He's ill, Professor," Sirius says importantly. "He won't be in today." He gives Anne a significant look there, to which she pointedly turns away, but Slughorn doesn't notice as he says, "Oh all right then, Black; be sure to tell him what he misses today though."

"Sure thing." Sirius gives Slughorn a solemn-faced salute before sitting down with Peter, to which our class giggles, but Slughorn simply ignores. He turns around and waves his wand, creating a list of instructions on the board for us, and as he begins to talk us through them, Sirius scoots his chair so that he's sitting with me and Anne at our table.

"May we help you, Black?" I whisper kind of cuttingly.

"You sure can," Sirius whispers back, ignoring my tone. "Well, not _yo_u, so much, Evans, but I definitely need a word with Miss Weathers here." He turns his gaze to her and asks, "So…you broke up with Prongs today, I hear?"

"Yeah, I did," Anne says defensively. "So what?"

"And you're aware of the reason he's not in class today?" he continues, as though Anne hadn't spoken.

"Yes," Anne says, though I can see the guilt in her eyes.

"Okay, good, we're on the same page here then," he says. "Just had to make sure, you know?" He smiles devilishly before adding delicately, "Oh, and the invitation for tonight is still open to the two of you – if you'd like to come as friends. He wanted me to tell you that."

"Thanks, but I don't think we'll be able to," I say politely, taking over for Anne. "We need an early night – we've been busy with our class-work and need to catch up on our sleep." I bite back the impulse to point out that this is a feeling he has never experienced in his life, so he'd better take my word for it.

"Whatever you say," he says carelessly. "Again, just making sure." He gives us a salute similar to the one he'd given Slughorn before gliding in his chair back to his table. Slughorn, on the other hand, had now finished going through the technicalities of the day's work and was in the process of dismissing us to the student's stores cupboard; he lets Anne and I go, and we do, but in silence. When we get back though, Anne makes sure Sirius is safely in his own area doing his own work before speaking.

"He's such an arse," she says, cutting up her daisy roots rather violently, her knife quivering in her shaky grip. "I bet James hadn't actually said that – he was only looking for a way to make me feel bad."

"It wouldn't be the first time Sirius has tried to do something like that," I admit.

"I loathe him," she snaps, dumping the roots into her cauldron and slamming more down to cut. "I really, really do."

I toy with my knife for a moment before saying, "Annie, you do know you're only mad at him because you need an emotional outlet for your frustration, don't you?"

"Stop trying to go all psychiatrist on me!" she shoots at me. "I hate him because he deserves to be hated, not because I need an 'emotional outlet,' as you put it."

"It's okay to feel bad about James," I tell her. "I know you loved him, and though I still stand by the fact that it was stupid of you to break up with him, it was your choice – at least be honest with the consequences."

She inhales sharply, but exhales slowly. "I don't want to talk about it. I just don't. Can we make our potion and be done with it, Lil? This isn't the right time or place to talk."

I doubt that Anne will find any suitable place or time to talk, but I follow her lead anyway and speed-cut my own daisy roots. When I put down my knife, however, I rest my hand on hers, surprising her, and say, "I'm with you, Annie; even if I don't have the same opinion as you do, I'm with you."

Her eyes immediately soften and she gives me a watery sort of smile. "Thanks, Lily."

I give her a very patient smile in return. "No problem, love." I take my hand away and continue with my potion, as does she, but a warm, fuzzy sort of silence engulfs us as we work. It's lame, cheesy, and kind of first-year, but it's true – I'm going to be with Anne, and I want her to know it.

I just have to wait until I'm done with my bloody potion and until Sirius Black is gone before I can really _prove _it.

**&&&**

Once Potions is over, Anne and I rush out of the classroom with the early, raucous crowd who want to leave first and make our way upstairs to the Gryffindor common room. Though we had not directly verbalized it through the period, we're in a hurry because we both want to see James, even if it's for different reasons; Anne wants to see him to see how he's taking the break-up, and I only want to know if he's all right. I don't know why this matters so much to me, but I've simply stopped asking myself that question these days – I take the emotions I get for what they are and no longer question them. If something inexplicably _matters_, then fine, it matters; that's that. Anne doesn't know anything about those matters, thankfully, so she's rather surprised to see me sprinting alongside of her as we take the stairs to the seventh floor three at a time.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" she asks, astonished.

"I'm tired – I want to get to my book and read it as soon as possible," I fib brutally, the tell-tale blush surely creeping up on my generally-pale cheeks.

Anne gives me a questioning look, but decides to accept my explanation without too much doubt as we halt in front of the portrait, give the password, and enter the common room. Gripping my hand tightly, she leads me forward and scans the room for James, until she finds him sitting on the sofa, playing with Sirius's Fanged Frisbee; at which point she clutches my wrist so tightly that I'm frightened for my blood circulation. She gives me a panicking look, but I wordlessly take my arm away from her and push her gently forward towards him. She shakes her head, bites her bottom lip resolutely, and astonishes me by dashing up the dormitory stairs without saying or doing a thing; I can swear I hear something that sounds like a sob as the dormitory door is opened and then closed. James hears this, obviously, and turns his head to ascertain the source of the noise – he only sees me, since Anne is gone, and his expression is baffled by the discovery.

"Hey," he says, his voice muted and wary.

"Hey." I guardedly take a few steps towards him, but don't quite make the whole journey there. He watches me silently, his eyes seeing all the way through me, it seems, but since neither of us speaking, the quiet in the room is unbearably loud. Is this always what happens when a girl doesn't know what to say to a guy? I don't have much experience in matters of daily male-female interactions, and perhaps this is why – I'm awful at it. I, Lily Evans, essay-writer extraordinaire, am unable to come up with a couple of simple, informal sentences to say to a boy I've known since I started Hogwarts! This is pitiful! So, simply for the sake of talking and proving to myself that I'm not as lame as I think I am, I eventually say – very awkwardly –, "Erm, I'm sorry…a-about today."

"It's no big deal," he says at once, trying and failing to sound casual.

I have no response to this, so I keep my mouth shut; he continues to keep his scarily intense stare on me, unabashed in his open analysis of what I could possibly be doing, and I try not to hate the second silence in five minutes as much as I want to. However, my exasperation wins out, in this particular case, and I say, "Honest – I'm sorry." And I am; I hadn't wanted it to end up this way, but somehow, I don't sound as convincing as I had been in my head – I'm concentrating more on talking to him properly without screwing up than actually giving him the console I'd aimed for. What a strange epiphany.

"I appreciate that." James says, appearing to either miss or ignore my lack of suitable placating skills as he forces himself, with evident effort, to give me a slight smile. "Thanks, Lily."

I purse my lips, weighing my options – should I physically take a seat on the sofa in front of him and talk to him about what happened with Anne, subtracting the portions about me as I go, or should I say a perfectly acceptable good-bye and run for my life up to the dormitory to see what's wrong with Anne? Neither option sounds particularly brilliant; one of them means talking to a boy who kissed me when he wasn't supposed to about the girlfriend that happens to be my closest friend, and the other means turning my back on him when he probably wants someone to talk to. I give out a mournful, internal sigh as I let my good side take me over and guide me over to where James is sitting. Highly uncomfortable, I slant my position on the sofa – stiff with my back as straight as though it's under the effect of a poker stick – to face him correctly as he raises his eyebrows at me; like me, he hadn't seen this coming.

"Look, Anne doesn't hate you or anything, if that's what you think," I burst out suddenly, letting my tongue acquire a mind of its own since my main brain has nothing worth offering at the moment. "She…she's not very good at keeping a relationship going for a long period of time, you see, and she simply felt that this was the right time to finish this one. She still does care about you, but it's not in her nature to be anything but single most of the time. It has nothing to do with the boy himself – you know what I mean?"

Wow, I think – that was quite good, actually. I should let my tongue think for itself more often and save myself some humiliation.

James mulls over this exceptional mini-speech for a moment, then says, "I suppose, but do you know if I did anything wrong? Anything to upset her?"

His voice is a little too urgent, so I immediately know exactly what he's thinking of; "No," I say quickly. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. Actually, it's more Anne than anything – she's…she's awfully silly about boyfriends." Wildly determined to make him believe me for reasons I will probably never identify with, I flabbergast the two of us by, all of a sudden, clutching his hand like Anne had clutched mine a few minutes back. "Don't think it's your fault, James, because if I know my best friend at all, I know it definitely isn't."

He's rendered speechless for quite some time when this falls out of my mouth; mortified by my tongue's boldness and making a mental note to never leave it in charge of a confrontation ever again, I pull my hand back nervously from his and sit there, facing him for what could have been weeks. His mysterious desire to stare at me for a long period of time can't seem to be quenched, as we dare the other to look away with only the power of our eyes. I concentrate on being focused and breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth slowly, to keep myself relaxed, despite the fact that my heart is pumping blood at a rate too fast to be healthy. I'm failing miserably though, so once I hear a five minutes tick by on the clock behind me, I tear my eyes away from James's face and scamper up the stairs to my dormitory with the air of one escaping a deadly predator. I don't know if he's still watching me, but I doubt it as I slip into my dormitory – that was the weirdest conversation I've ever had in my _life_, let alone with _him_. Mental note: never attempt to comfort James Potter when his girlfriend has broken up with him, no matter how depressed he looks.

When I flop down to my bed, my head whirling as it so often does after I've been discussing anything with James, and I see Anne curled up on her own bed, looking like a hen left out in the rain. Her downcast eyes look up slightly when they see me dramatically put my hand to my chest, which is rising and falling at a terrifying pace, both with my erratic heartbeat and swift breathing. "Where were you?" she asks me quietly when I've calmed down a little bit.

"Downstairs," I say. "Talking to James." Well, if we were being technical, I'd have to say I'd been staring at James rather than talking to him very much, but we're not, thank goodness – I don't want to have to own up to that.

"What did you talk about?" Her tone is hollow, but I can hear curiosity behind it all the same.

"Nothing much," I say truthfully.

"Is he really mad at me?"

"No," I say. "He thought he'd done something wrong to make you break up with him – I told him that he hadn't though."

"Thanks." Anne lies back on her pillow, staring up at the ceiling moodily.

I watch her progress for a few seconds, but then I ask her, "Annie, are you sure it was a good idea to break up with James?"

"Of course it was," she says, somehow unable to insert the right amount of defiance in the four words. "It hurts right now, but I'm going to be okay. We both are."

"It's pointless though," I say sadly. "Why are you putting yourself through this when you don't need to?"

Anne sighs and hugs her knees. "Tomorrow, I'm going to be just fine – you watch. And besides, I _did_ need to; you are in love with him, and I remember telling you that I would get you with him any way I could because I care about you and want you to have at least one boyfriend before you leave Hogwarts next year so that you have the experience to look back on as you embark on your years as a boring Healer who lives her life without a single man in her romantic life."

Smirking at her dry sense of humor, I say, "Gee, thanks Anne; I feel more loved than you can ever imagine."

"You _should _feel loved," she says. "You are." She gives me a slight smile and says, "I'm going to go out for a run then, all right? I'll see you later."

"You're going for a run?" My tone is colored by a great amount of disbelief. "You _hate _running!"

"Yes, but the adrenaline is flowing – I might as well take advantage," she says with a shrug, picking herself up off the bed and edging towards the door. "I'll be back whenever." She does not give me any space to respond as she marches right out of the threshold out of the room – I am, again, left on my own in my dormitory, overwhelmed by the two diverse and highly perplexing people I've shared my day with.

I let my head fall right back on the pillow once more and squeeze my eyes shut, trying my hardest to go to sleep or do something that doesn't involve too much thinking; normally, I'd reflect upon this latest development, but right now, all I want to do is blank out and think no more.

When I was younger, my mother always told me that things would look better in the morning – I sincerely hope she was right.

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, I know; that was a pretty lazy ending, but I already warned you that this chapter was crappy – I'll give you a better one when I next post. :/  
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	13. Of Trying to Understand James Potter

**A/N: The official chapter count for this story has now been decided on for fifteen, and then an epilogue – sixteen in total. :) Exciting, isn't it? Haha. Anyway, you know this drill already, so I'll just give you a quick, friendly reminder – read, review, and enjoy!

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**

Saturday morning dawns on me, bright and early, and when I first wake up, I have to take a moment to remember why my stomach is clenched up so tight. Everything has been exploding so quickly on me these past couple of days – it's starting to freak me out, to say the least. When the thoughts of Anne and James and their messy break-up return to me in their own, sweet time, I groan and fall back to my pillow; I'd fallen asleep early last night for the sake of forgetting about it! I know I can't avoid it forever, but I'm trying my hardest to avoid it anyway; call me lame, but I find it's easier to shy away than face it head-on, like Anne likes to do.

Anne; I didn't see her come back last night. I sit up and peer over to her side of the room, sweeping my eyes over her bed, and see that she's awake, but just barely. She must have woken up a few minutes ago, like I had. I clear my throat and croak, my voice full of morning exhaustion, "Morning, Annie."

Sitting up at the sound of her name, Anne turns her attention to me and smiles tiredly. "Morning, Lil," she says with a yawn. "How are ya?"

"Sleepy," I say. "It's Saturday."

"I know." She yawns a second time. "Do you know what time it is?"

I check the clock on the wall. "Ten fourteen," I inform her.

"This is the latest I've been able to sleep in since, like, ever," Anne comments, stretching out her arms.

"No, you've slept until noon before this year," I remind her.

"Stop ruining my moment." She smirks at me and chucks her pillow at my head. I dodge her throw and tease her by saying, "Missed me."

Anne makes a face at me, gives me a slothful middle finger, and yawns yet again. I give her a highly offended look, which she ignores, and asks, "So…what's on the agenda for today?"

"I dunno," I say, slowly climbing out of bed and running my fingers through my hair to see if it needs a wash. It doesn't, so I pad into the bathroom and pull out a hair tie from my drawer to tie it up in a casual ponytail and call back to Anne, "Do you want to do anything in particular?"

"Yeah, I want to go to Honeydukes," Anne tells me, picking herself out of bed and joining me in the bathroom. "It's yummy in there – my stomach wants chocolate."

I know Anne well enough to pick up on the fact that she only eats chocolate when she needs comfort food; suspiciously, I ask her, "Why?"

"Because I fucking like chocolate," Anne tells me short-temperedly, putting toothpaste on her toothbrush.

It's a very normal day if Anne is grumpy and swears at me early in the morning, but that doesn't stop me from saying, "Watch the language. You know I don't like that word."

Anne makes a face as she runs the brush through her mouth, but she can't say anything until after she's able to spit the liquefied toothpaste from her mouth a couple of minutes later. She rinses quickly, and says, "I'm sorry, Lily. I'm not awake yet – I should not be held responsible for the bitchy things I do when I'm half-conscious."

"Of course," I say sarcastically. "Now are you ready to be in a good mood?"

Anne takes a hair tie from my drawer as well – she doesn't bother asking me if she can use one because she knows I never say no – and as she ties her hair up into a messy bun, she says, "I can try, but I can't guarantee anything."

"Good enough for me," I say. "So…how are you feeling?"

"Fine," she says, mystified. "Why wouldn't I be anything else?"

"Well, call me weird, but I might be a _tad _upset the day after I break up with a boyfriend I really, really liked," I say, my tone dripping in cynicism, though I'm watching her carefully for a reaction.

My observance is rewarded – Anne freezes in her place, does a bit of speedy calculating, and says in a greatly careful and measured tone, "I'm not upset about it anymore. I was thinking about it a lot last night when I was out – what I felt for James was something in between a crush and real love, but it wasn't quite at either end of the spectrum. I mean, I only went out with him to make _you_ fall in love with him, but somewhere along the line, I fell for him too, but I kept reminding myself what I was doing and why I was doing it so that I wouldn't feel the way I am now when it's time to finish. I'm okay, Lily; all _you _need to worry about, at this point, is your own relationship with James."

I groan heavily upon hearing this. "You did love him though, Annie, and I don't – I could never feel anything like what you feel about him. He's simply not my type."

"Why not?" Anne takes off her pajama shorts and slips on her favorite jeans, unembarrassed about doing it in front of me. "Why isn't he your type?"

I sit up on the counter in the bathroom, sigh, and say, "He just _isn't_. I don't feel right around him – I barely even know him anymore."

"He's a person worth knowing, that's something I can tell you right off the bat," Anne says, turning around so that she can change her bra and put on her shirt. "You won't regret it, even if you don't stay together for more than a few weeks." She twirls a couple of times, strikes a pose, and laughs. "He used to love it when I did stuff like that – he's so mature, but so young at the same time. He knows how to be serious, but also when to be silly; it doesn't hurt that he's adorable too."

I shake my head as Anne grabs my hand and sits me down on my unmade bed as she sits on her own. "Too much has happened," I say. "I can't forget it, and he can't either. There are things about me I know he won't be able to handle." I don't say it, but there's also the possibility that he won't _want _to handle those things either, once he finds out about them – there are times when even I would give up on myself.

Anne smiles patiently at me, seeming to see my internal trauma somehow through my face. "If _I_ can handle them – me, the most impatient person this world has ever seen – then James Potter can definitely handle them as well. Have more faith in him; like you said, he's not the same guy you used to know and hate."

I stay silent for a few moments, looking into my friend's expectant eyes, but when I open my mouth to speak, it has nothing to do with James; "I want breakfast, Annie, and then maybe we can go to Honeydukes to get you the chocolate you wanted."

I stand up to go get my clothes and dress, and Anne gives me an animal sigh that could also count as a point in the moan category. "This is something else that annoys me about you!" she shouts at me, following me to my part of the dormitory to yell at me more effectively. "Every time I'm getting somewhere with you, you change the subject and avoid me! That only tells me that I'm right, Lils."

I face away from her as I put on my jeans and a plain, dark green t-shirt without saying anything, but once I turn back to face her again, I say, "You are still quite wrong, Annie, and that's the end of this discussion. I don't want to talk about James, all right?"

Anne looks at me for a full minute – I checked on the clock behind her – but says, "Fine. I'll be at breakfast; are you coming with me, or are you hanging around here for a little while longer?"

"I'll hang around here a little while longer," I say. "I'll be down in about five minutes."

"'Kay," she says. "Just remember to leave your denial up here and bring down the expectation that you will be talking about how much you like James later on today."

Trying hard to ignore the last little phrase of her statement, I say dryly, "Will do."

Satisfied, Anne exits the room and I am left by myself in the dormitory. I fall back on my covers, growl to no one in particular, and put my face in my hands. Why is it so impossible for Anne to realize that I don't like James? Why can't she accept my word for what it is, rather than questioning it nearly every day? I'm not the type of person to fall in love – I'm terrible at telling someone that I care about them and I'm even worse at believing someone when they say they care about me – and I don't want to have to show James Potter, the boy who had the most faith in me from day one, to know that his efforts have been wasted. He'd be disappointed in me if he found out how little there was to me, I know it, and I wouldn't be able to bear that; it would only confirm things I know, but don't acknowledge. Besides all of that, I hate him – don't I?

Okay, in the quiet and safety of my dormitory, I can let myself think – not say – that I don't hate James anymore. I truly thought I did, especially at the start of this whole melodrama, but the moment Anne started dating him and I had to hear about how great he was from the best friend who used to share my opinions, something changed; I don't know what it was or how it started to work its magic on me, but my feelings changed. I mean, look at the things I've done recently – I tried (miserably) to comfort him when Anne broke up with him, I stared at him and his friends during breakfast, I helped him with his Potions essay, I _kissed _him – why did I do any of them? What pushed me to think that they were right? I can't seem to figure it out, and I'm afraid – I don't know what's happening to me. I've never felt like this before – so uncertain, like I'm not even familiar with the person that I am. It's like being thirteen all over again, and I'd hated being it the first time.

I retie my hair again, simply to give my hands something to do, and gradually, I get up off of my bed. Disregarding what Anne had asked me to do earlier, I keep my denial close to me and make my way down to the Great Hall for breakfast.

Despite everything that's been shifting in me lately, at least my appetite has remained the same – constant and never-ending.

**&&&**

Breakfast was, thankfully, a James-free affair today. When I went into the Great Hall, Anne flagged me down and we scarfed down whatever we could get our fingers on, as we always do, and we talked about how nice the weather was getting these days. We're fast-approaching April now, which does mean lots of rain, but it also means sunshine and warm air ideal for lazing around by the lake. We also get the Easter holidays in a couple of weeks, which is always good, and my parents are thinking about going to Germany for a few days with me and my sister, Petunia. Anne, on the other hand, refuses to spend her holidays with her mother, whom she hates, and is going to be spending her time off with her father, who feels that he needs to have some alone time with his daughter. From what I gather, he can see quite plainly that she is not getting along with his wife and will make life hell for them if he forces them to be together for the time she's at home. When I pointed this out, she laughed at me and told me I was right-on – it was a pretty interesting conversation.

Once we were done with breakfast, Anne and I decided to take advantage of the weather we'd been discussing and go outside for a little while. We left through the front doors, crossed the grounds, and settled down at the base of our favorite beech tree, squinting because of the sun in our faces. I sigh appreciatively as we sit there, watching some Hogwarts students that had the same idea we did goof off on their Saturday morning; "This is so relaxing," I comment.

"I know," Anne agrees, laying her head against the tree trunk, not caring if she got wood fragments in her hair. "I love spring."

"Same." I yawn. "But too much sun makes me sleepy and lethargic."

"Good – you need some more lethargy in your life," Anne says.

I smirk. "Haha, funny."

"Love, I speak the truth – if the truth happens to be funny, it's a complete coincidence." Anne gives me a jack-o-lantern grin and yawns, her mouth open wide, as I giggle.

"I suppose," I say, for lack of anything better on my mind. I'm feeling strangely blank, and beautifully at ease – I rather like it. It's not often that I get to enjoy myself so fully or so idly. I know I'm going to feel guilty for this later, but for now, I don't give a damn and it feels too good to be true.

"So…" Anne says eventually after a few minutes of silence, groping a little too deliberately for a subject. "I told you this morning you'd be talking to me about James some time today."

Instantly, my brain switches from unoccupied mode to closed-wall mode, which is upsetting, considering how happy and vacant I just was; "Yes, you did," I say cautiously. "So what's your point?"

"I think now is a good time to talk about it," she informs me, as indifferently as if she were giving me her opinion on her favorite Muggle film.

"What is there to say?" It's best to skirt around direct remarks and play dumb to every sentence coming out of Anne's mouth when I'm talking about James Potter these days, I've found, because then I'm not in any danger of saying something I don't mean by accident. I know perfectly well that this topic is her version of a police investigation – anything I say or do will be used against me later when I really don't need it to.

"Lily Evans, are you or are you not in love with James Potter?" she asks me, giving me the straight question I was listening for to avoid.

"Of course I'm not," I say diplomatically, hoping to sound miffed to the point of believability, but not to the point of exaggeration where it becomes obvious that I'm lying, which I'm not. "I'm currently out of love with him, actually."

Anne raises her eyebrow at me, but says, "Let's try this again, shall we?" She clears her throat and inquires, "Lily Evans, do you or do you not get nervous when James Potter is in your company?"

"I do, but it's not because I love him," I say, trying hard to defend myself well – if I screw this answer up, I'm done for. "It's because I don't know how to talk to someone who hates me and who I hate back."

"Lily Evans, do you or do you not trust me?" Anne demands to know next.

"I do trust you, but not in the matters of my feelings for James, no matter what they may be," I say, smiling superiorly as she glowers at my thorough answer – I've already tried using this conversation tactic on her, so I know how to counter it.

"Fine then; Lily Evans, did you or did you not enjoy the kiss James Potter gave you the night I called him a bad kisser?" Anne is trying to stare me down as she says this, looking for any scrap of emotion she can use to her benefit. I, however, let my eyes turn to stone and keep my face expressionless before I articulate even a syllable – I am very, very careful when it comes to the dealings of the mind.

"Before I respond to that query, you respond to one of mine – Anneliese Weathers, will you or will you not stop using my full name in every question you ask me?" I finally say.

"I'm sorry – I was having a little too much fun here," Anne says, cringing at my use of her full name. "I'll stop. Now respond away, Lils; I want to hear what you have to say."

"Very well then," I say. "No, I didn't enjoy that kiss."

"Am I allowed to ask why the hell not?"

"Yes, you are," I say. "I didn't enjoy it because I was worried about what you might think of me kissing your boyfriend when you were out – I can't enjoy anything when I'm guilty, even chocolate."

Anne bangs her forehead a couple of times against the tree in frustration. "You are _impossible_," she grouches. "I _wanted _you to kiss James; I _wanted _a reason to break up with him. It was all part of the plan. Your utter denial was not, so you know what? Screw this interview – I'm going to do some talking, and you're going to do some listening. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," I say, tense nonetheless at her sudden change of mood.

"Good," she says curtly. Then she sighs, gathers her thoughts for whatever lecture she has in store for me, and then says, "You think James hates you, don't you? You think he couldn't forgive you for what you've done over the course of five and a half years. Well, you're wrong – so wrong, in fact, that it's laughable. James doesn't hate you at all; Lils, he's still in love with you."

"How can that be?" I ask. I really can't believe what she's saying – James can't love me. He can't even like me. I don't like him yet, and I don't trust him; I've been awful to him, and I don't want to hear that he forgives me. I don't deserve his forgiveness, let alone his love, but I don't know how to communicate these feelings properly to Anne.

"Easily," Anne answers me, pouncing on the opportunity to talk more about how much James was apparently in love with me. "Oh, Lily, it's heartbreaking – once, he was asking me about why you hated him so much, and I swear, he looked like one of those sad, forgotten little puppy dogs that you find in animal pounds. I told him that you found him arrogant, shallow, irksome, desperate, and overly-flirtatious and if given the choice, you'd rather chew off your own toenails, because that's what you've always told me; he looked uncomprehendingly at me for a second, but then he changed the subject so quickly that I knew I had to have hurt him by saying that."

"Really?" I'm in shock – this can't possibly be true. James is kind of chary around me, true enough, but he's generally as normal as it's possible to be – I might even like him if I hadn't had such a history with him before. Is he really capable of acting so…vulnerable when he has to hear about how much I hate him?

"Yes, really," she says. "And, when I first started dating him, I was curious to know what he thought about you – you were under the delusion that he despised you after that day in fifth year, and I wanted to hear it from him if it was true or not. He gave me this weird look when I brought it up, and his exact words were, 'How can I possibly loathe Lily Evans? _She's _the one who loathes _me_; I'd always been quite fond of her.' I asked him if he still was fond of you, and he said of course – you were a great person, just perhaps not ready for a romantic relationship. Then he changed the subject, obviously, since it was getting kind of awkward, but I knew that you had it all wrong – I simply didn't know how or when to tell you, before now."

"He's fond of me?" I'm choking on the very air I'm supposed to be getting life from – James Potter is still fond of me? He cares about me? He thinks I'm not ready for a real relationship yet? When did all this come about and why didn't I know about it?!

"So much," Anne says, looking sadly at me. "You just never knew."

"He should have told me," I wail.

"But, see, that's the thing – he did." Anne takes my hand and squeezes it in her own. "He told you hundreds of times, but each one of those times resulted in you getting angry and him getting hurt, so he stopped telling you. Now you know what you need to do – you need to tell him that you love him, because you do."

"I don't," I say weakly, biting at my lips like I do when I'm nervous. "I don't love him. I don't want to hear this either, Annie."

"Why not?" she asks. "Because you know I'm right?"

"Because I don't know," I burst out. "I just don't know, Anne."

"Get to know!" She thumps me hard on my head and looks me square in the eyes. The look she gives me is frightening – her eyes are blazing and fiery, while I'm sure mine resemble slightly weathered stones. "I've made this as plain as I can for you, Lil," she says, her voice forceful. "I've even dated the bloody boy myself to show you how it works! He's been smitten with you from pretty much the first day he met you, and if you ask him about all that, he'll tell you himself! But the thing about you, Lily, is that when you don't want to see something, you turn off your eyes and ears and hope that if you curl up into a little ball and let all the proof around you bounce off of you, that everything will go away and you won't have to worry about it. That tactic's not going to cut it this time though, because you know what? People get tired of waiting and James Potter has waited for you as long as anyone should have to wait. Every damn thing you could possibly need is _right here_, in plain black-and-white for you – the _only _thing you need to do is admit how you feel. Second chances don't always come in life, hon, and if you don't take this one, you're going to regret it. So tell me right now, for the last and final time, do you love him?"

My lips feel like they've been chewed all the way off, and I can feel the tears clinging to my eyelids after she's finished lecturing me. I hadn't seen such a passionate, resonating speech coming from her; truly, I hadn't. My stomach is raw, and tightened to the point where it's physically killing me – every word Anne has said is ringing in my ears and running through my head, and what's mostly hurting me is that she's right about everything. She's right about how she analyzed my personality in about one sentence, she's right about how easy she's tried to make this for me, and she's right about how cowardly I'm being by not taking the chances I'm given. She wants one word from me – just one, a yes or a no – and I don't know which one to give. So, I do what I always do in this type of a situation – I close my eyes so that I don't have to look at her, and in the smallest voice I possess, I repeat what I said before, "I don't know."

I open my eyes at that point, and I see Anne's face, but I'm surprised by what I see _in _that face. Anger, furiousness, fits – I would have gladly taken all of it instead of the look of chilled disappointment on her face. Actually, I would have said yes if I'd known how disgustedly she'd look at me, but I know it's too late to change my choice now. Anne sighs and says in a much softer, cooler voice, "Fine. I'll see you tonight, then."

And with this, she gets up and leaves me by the beech tree, troubled and confused, in her wake. Just like that.

Once she's out of sight, I have to hold back the impulse to cry – I do exactly what she accused me of doing and curl up on the ground, hugging my knees to my chest, and wish I could rewind my life back to first year so that I could accept James Potter's first proposal to go to Hogsmeade and avoid everything that's happened to us after that day. Every part of me is hurting by now; with a great clarity, I can see all of the mistakes I've made, thanks to Anne's sermon. When things get hard for me emotionally, I have, as she pointed out, a tendency of avoiding it and hoping it would go away instead of going after it and fixing it. How do I avoid it? I work hard. I have good grades because I use tests and homework – things that make perfect sense to me – as my excuse to not think about my inner turmoil. James has been my biggest emotional turmoil of all, which is why I'm feeling so horrible right now; until today, I'd let my thoughts about James hide in a comfortable, untouchable, and unchangeable bubble. Over the summer, I'd taught myself to believe that James hated me for saying cruel things, that he was done with me, and that I could tone down hating him because it hadn't done me much good, though I wasn't going to give up hating him altogether. Then this year started, and nothing could challenge my bubble; for that, I was happy, peaceful, and at rest with the world…until now. Until I realized how little I know him. Until I made Anne date him. Until I began getting those weird thoughts creeping in the back of my mind that screwed me up. Until I kissed him. Until I didn't know how the hell I got into this mess to start with. I bite my lip as this realization floods into my mind; I have to face up to the truth now. I no longer hate James Potter. In all honesty, I usually forget I even hated him to begin with – that isn't a good argument for me. So if I don't hate him, what _do _I feel about him?

I uncurl from my ball and lay my head back against the tree trunk. I don't know, and I won't let anyone explain it to me because I flip-flop between theories so much. It's a sure sign that there's something wrong if I can't keep the same opinion for three days in a row.

As I sit there, agonized and irritated with myself, I see the figure that is Sirius Black come out of the castle. He's alone – that's a spectacle in itself, since he likes to have his Marauder associates with him twelve hours every day. He strolls out to the grounds, whistling to himself and looking around, and then he catches sight of me. I groan and turn my head away, hoping he hasn't seen me, but he already has. Wonderful; as if I really need him right now. I catch him wave merrily at me before I busy myself with picking off gunk from underneath my fingernails; a few minutes later, I feel his weight next to me, and when I turn to look to my right, his face fills my vision. I scoot slightly over as a result, but he doesn't care – he laughs.

"Hello, Your Highness," he says, grinning. "How's the Royal Homework going?"

"Magnificently, thank you," I say sullenly. "What do you want?"

"Cranky little chicklet, are we?" Sirius wrinkles his nose. "Well, that's not good – what's up?"

"Why do you care?" I ask him crossly; I'm not in the mood for his sardonic companionship.

"Because you're my queen," he says, batting his eyelashes at me. "I have to please the Homework Queen, don't I?"

"No, really, why do you care?"

Sirius smirks. "Fine, fine, you win; James wants me to be nice to you, and I figure being nice means asking you what's on your mind. Did you stab that Anne with a quill or something? She looked pissed when I was coming out – she was going back in, but you're out here, looking like someone made you bathe in Stinksap."

"We were arguing about James," I admit.

"Ooh, what about James?" Sirius's interest is sparked. "I might be able to clear a few things up for my ickle queensie."

I shoot him a look, but I sigh and say, "It was nothing, really. You wouldn't understand."

"Try me." His attention is permanently caught now, and nothing can divert it, so I figure I'll give him a short version of the truth.

"Okay, well, Anne was trying to convince me that I was in love with James _again_, even though she knows I'm not –"

Here, I am interrupted by Sirius chortling and saying, "Ohhhh. Yeah, I get it now."

"Wait, what do you get?" I cry, alarmed at the wrong assumption he's probably acquired from my half-sentence.

"_Everything_," Sirius says importantly, winking at me.

"It's almost certainly not what you think," I am quick to say. "I don't like James that way – not at all – because I've told him before that he's not really my type, no offense to him or anything –" I'm babbling, and I know it, but there's some kind of desperate blather-switch in me that turns on the moment I talk or think about James Potter; I can't help it. Sirius is highly amused, seeing as he has never been exposed to the edgy, gibbering side of me; to demonstrate his delight, he snorts, grins, and says, "Peter was right then."

He knows I can't resist asking what Peter was right about, which was the intent of the statement, so I decide to play into his trap. "What do you mean?"

"Peter told me yesterday that you were completely in denial about our little Prongsie after James told us how you talked to him on breaking up with Weathers," Sirius says flippantly, grinning at me. "He was right."

This really gets my blood boiling; I'd known that he'd get the incorrect idea – I'd just known it. "I'm not in _denial_," I say hotly. "I don't feel that way about him – never have, never will."

"Well, even if _you _don't, _he_ still does," Sirius says lightly.

"You can't be serious," I say, frustrated by Sirius's lack for detail. I should expect this, since it's Sirius and all, but I want an _answer_, not a cryptic hint. "James was supposed to be with Anne, who was stupid enough to break up with him. I was just the matchmaker. My part was used already – end of story."

"Nope, not at all," he says. "He never really got over you, you know. He still talked about you during the summer before this year, throughout the year. He still admires you – he was thrilled when you helped him on that stupid Potions essay."

This is an unexpectedly intelligent conversation I'm having with Sirius Black, but what annoys me is that it's spot-on with what Anne had said to me just a little while back. What is destiny trying to tell me here? Is it attempting to make me feel bad? If so, it's succeeding admirably well; I feel like crap. "He doesn't admire me," I say, my voice low and bothered – my way of showing him I'm not feeling responsive at the moment.

"Yes, he does admire you," Sirius contradicts me. "You see, Evans, he did and still does like Weathers a lot, but it's not like what was going on with _you_. I mean, you're the girl he liked since first year – Weathers is just another cute chick he recently noticed. I mean, yeah, he's been feeling a lot better around Weathers, but come on; can you seriously see them together? Because of that, he's trying to convince everyone that he's over you, but we know he isn't, and honestly, the only one he's trying to persuade is himself, because nobody ever believed him to start with – I don't even think _you _believed him."

"How do you know all of this?" I demand. I somehow can't trust the notion that Sirius Black, king of immaturity while I am queen of homework, grew up _this_ much overnight.

"I'm a perceptive person," Sirius says indignantly. "I can be sensitive if I want!"

I give him a highly doubtful look, and about thirty seconds later, he caves in to my stare and gives me a very huffy sigh. "Okay, fine, so maybe Remus was telling me all this a few days back and I knew it would answer your question," he confesses.

"I knew it," I say exultantly. "That was too sentimental to come from you."

"But this part _is_ from me, so listen up," Sirius says, his voice business-like now. "James is the very best friend I've ever had, Evans, and I care a lot about him and what he wants. Since it happens to be you, in this case, I'm just going to say this – I hardly even know you, I'm certainly not on amazing terms with you, and what I've told you today probably shouldn't have been said in the first place, but I don't regret this conversation because I feel that you have a right to know. Got it?"

I'm troubled, as I look into Sirius's admittedly handsome and intense face, so I say, after clearing my throat a little, "Thanks. Really. I'll keep this stuff in mind."

"Excellent." He gives me his monkey grin and gets up off the grass. "Now I need to go find Moony – I think he's in the damn library again, and I'll have to fish-hook him out. Later, Your Majesty."

He gives me a bow before departing, and I, once again, am left to bang my head against the tree. What does fate have against me today?! Whatever it is, I must have done something very, very wrong to deserve it, because I feel like the most cursed person in the school today. The intuitive part of my brain that operates the way Anne does is telling me that my crime was letting a good thing go, but the rest of my brain argues, quite rightly so, what did I let go? What did I not do that I should have?

_You should have trusted Anne_, my intuition tells me disappointedly. _She was right._

What does that have to do with anything? I counter. What was she right about? Furthermore, I do trust Anne – she's my best friend!

_You can't trust someone if you don't listen to the best advice they've ever given you._

She was trying to hook me up with James Potter!

_Maybe you should be hooking up with James Potter._

How would Anne know something like that?

_Sometimes, your friends know you better than you know yourself._

This isn't one of those times!

_I think it is._

No, it isn't! She was the one who was supposed to be with James, not me! I had been trying my best to do what was best for her, and now here she is, reversing the entire operation to make best for me, when it's only a wasted effort!

_I think you're in love with him._

I think you're wrong!

_I think I'm right, and you hate it so much that you're in denial._

I'm not in denial! I'm perfectly right – I've been right about everything, so why is this any different?

_Because, my dear, this is love you're trying to predict – your abilities for being right on love are rubbish, because they're completely wrong._

How are they wrong, may I ask?

_You think love is this storybook affair – quick, clean, and probable. It isn't; love is subtle, powerful, and hard to ignore._

Of course I don't think that way! Besides, if love is so hard to ignore, then why do I not think I'm in love?

_Oh, but this is where you're so sadly wrong – you _have_ noticed you're in love, which is why you're putting yourself through this emotional ordeal. You can feel yourself falling in love with him, but you're too embarrassed, proud, and arrogant to acknowledge it. That's why you feel like you're arguing against your own brain._

I'm not proud or arrogant – that's James, not me. I'm just not in love; this isn't love. It can't be.

_You're very proud and arrogant, but in a different way than what you see as proud and arrogant. You think you're too good for him – you think he could never be smart enough or sensitive enough or generally commendable enough to be with you. You're proud of your reputation of as a Marauder hater – so proud that you don't want to see it go. If you admitted to loving James, then your reputation would change, which is another reason you're holding back._

None of this is true at all! You've got it all wrong!

_Have I?_

I bite my tongue as this last thought starts to fade back into nothingness – in fact, I bite down so hard that I can taste the rusty and headache-worthy blood filtering through my mouth. Tears pool within the pockets that are my eyelids, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut to keep them back; when it's put that way for me, I might actually be in…dare I think it?…_love _with James Potter. Irony – it's such a cruel, heartless, and unforgiving thing, and I get to take a ride on it first class; special, special me.

I mean, think about it – _James Potter_. He used to be the boy that would play with my hair constantly because he had an insane fascination with the color red while telling all of his friends that it looked like I used carrot shampoo in first year; the boy who made the Quidditch team as a Chaser against all odds in second year, slightly elevating his social status when people got past the messy hair and glasses; the boy who, without any warning or even intention, turned from a slightly obnoxious dork who had a knack for Quidditch to adorable public darling in third year; the boy who claimed to need a 'serious' relationship with the girl he had been 'crushing on' since the day he met her (me, unfortunately) in fourth year as an excuse to become a flirtatious prick; the boy who treated – but more like condemned – me to a second full year of relentless pick-up lines and petty harassment until I finally blew my top off at the end of fifth year. This was the boy who used his charms to get out of doing homework he could probably finish correctly within a half hour, who told jokes for hours and hours on weekends when no one could find anything to do, who teamed up with Sirius Black to date the most girls in Hogwarts when he got an actual social status, who procrastinated studying for tests until two hours before, who had the most hideous chicken-scratch handwriting up until fourth year, when I consciously avoided looking at anything he wrote for fear of losing my eyesight. This boy was the one who watched me go through all the life-changes I've ever endured during my time in this castle from afar – who caused several of them, too, come to think of it – so can I really fall in love with him? Can I really feel something that's not complete and utter detestation for him after all he's witnessed, executed, and triggered in my life? It seems impossible, but at the same time, there's something _appealing _about the idea, like it was when I first discovered that Cinderella the Servant ended up with Prince Charming rather than some other rich girl. Maybe there's room in my life for James Potter after all.

I stand up then, feeling kind of dizzy after all of my muddled epiphanies, and I realize that this slight openness to how I'm feeling is probably a good thing. After all, how many times have I personally wished that people could let go of the person I used to be and accept the person that I am now? How many times have I wanted to shed my previous image and make a new one? It's only fair that I give James the courtesy I've wanted all my life – in his defense, he's actually done quite a lot of growing up this year. As Anne had said before, he's become the type of person I'd always wanted right before my very eyes – he's funny but knows when to be serious, he's lazy but he can get his work done on time now, and he's direct but not imposing. I suppose I can even throw the half-true fact that he's kind of cute in there too. He's grown up very nicely, I have to admit it, even though I'd never in a million years expected it to happen. He was never supposed to be my type – I'm supposed to always be right – but feelings change along with personality. According to Anne in particular, it was only a matter of time before I gave in; it's human nature to feel the attraction towards someone so completely different from myself, even if the other doesn't appear to be a wonderful guy. So wrong it's right…I've heard that saying before, but I never saw how true it could really be.

I saunter up the stairs to the castle, holding my dreadful new secret close to the dark little corner deep within the bowels of my body, where the very essence of my soul is located – hopefully, this is a half-baked realization that will go away or stay put wherever I decide to stash it, and I can take everything that I'm feeling right now to the grave without telling anyone, not even Anne, what's going on in my head.

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**A/N: That was a slightly muddled ending there, and I know it; see, I wrote one out when I did the first draft of this chapter, but it felt like it was dragging the chapter down in a way I didn't like, so I simply took it out and left the last sentiments there vague. However, you should have been able to see that yes, Lily is more conscious of the fact that she's in love, and now we're heading into the last few chapters of the story!! So I hope you enjoyed that, and please don't forget to review!**


	14. Of Foolishness Regarding James Potter

**A/N: Holy crap, I'm so, so, so, **_**so**_** sorry for the super long delay with this chapter! I've just been crazy busy lately, whatwith finals, my own social life (yes, I actually have one, isn't it exciting?), and other projects; I hadn't realized I'd taken so much time to write this. However, here it is, and I ****promise**** the next chapter won't be so delayed, mmkay? So stick with me here – we're nearly done. For now, just read, review, enjoy, and know that the end is near. :)

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It's been a little over a week – a whole, long week full of homework assignments and a couple of tests, as well as plenty of Anne's usual complaining – and I still cannot make heads or tails of my situation.

I've had distractions across the board to keep me busy or to at least avoid thinking about what Anne and Sirius had shared with me, and yet, I can't seem to make good use of what I'm given. I failed both of those two tests, much to my horror and Anne's excitement ("You failed your first tests – you _are_ normal after all!") thanks to my recent lack of attention to things that matter in life, but even after the abundant amount of time I've spent trying to decipher how I feel, I'm back at square one. The saddest part? It's that I've become so infatuated with _him_ lately that I've also become obsessed with figuring out _why _I'm obsessed with him. It's completely weird, I know, but I have a nasty feeling that it's because I'm slowly, but surely, losing my mind.

I have plenty to support my theory, too; to start with, I felt nauseous all the time. It wasn't just the normal, everyday stomachache though – it was a fully blown _pain _in my stomach, as if tens of thousands of knives were stabbing my insides simultaneously – and I nearly went to the nurse to see if I was ill. Once after that, Anne looked at me for longer than ten seconds without saying anything, and I mysteriously blurted out at her, "NO! I'm FINE!" She gave me a weird look, of course, but I felt like a moron, because she hadn't even been looking at me – she was looking at someone or something behind me. In addition to that, I've been getting nervous that someone's always watching me. See, there's a certain _sensation_ I get when someone's looking at me behind my back; it's just this instinct that makes me look back to see what they want. Unfortunately for me, the mentioned instinct keeps acting up, like a little kid that can't shut up, and I'm forever checking behind me to see if someone – anyone – is staring at me. They never are, of course, so it makes me feel stupid, but what's worse is that it's all in my head – my own mind is playing tricks on me. I feel like one of those lunatics that society wants locked up, even if I was never like this until these past few days.

Naturally, Anne has noticed my batty behavior, and like me, she's rather scared by it. She keeps asking me what's wrong, but I'm forced to tell her the same answer every time – I don't know. I wish I knew what was going on, but I don't, and she doesn't believe me. She's worried though, but she thinks it'll be better for me if I just figure it out on my own, which is why I spend more time alone, getting more screwed up by the minute. This is why I come down to breakfast without her this morning so I can have one last – and this time, I mean last – stab at coming up with a rational theory that supports my sudden interest – Anne calls it love – for James Potter.

Right now, my speculation is this: I can't love James, because love no longer means anything to anyone. I mean, when I was in Muggle elementary school, 'crushes' used to be publicized more than real world-events were – rumors were passed down the grapevine, from kid to kid, that some girl _like-liked _some guy, but they weren't allowed to tell, which they, of course, did. After that, obviously, that unfortunate girl, upon recently becoming infatuated with her seven year old classmate, would be caught writing her married name across the front of her paper textbook covers, which would get the entire class excited and tentative for her to admit it to the rest of them.

As I got older, love still worked like that – gossiping, giggling, and writing names across whatever sheet of parchment came to grasp – and it has reached the point where I have lost all faith in it. The meaning of the word 'love' has been mangled so much that I refuse to say I love anyone, because chances are, people aren't going to get what I say if I phrased it like that. Therefore, I'm never going to say I love James, nor am I going to write my name as if I'm married to him or anything like that – it's simply out of the question. Seriously; not only is it childish, it wouldn't even work with me in this particular case; Lily Potter? It just doesn't have a very nice ring to it – how would I ever sign my name on anything? No, Lily Potter is definitely not going to be the name I'm going to live with, which only supports my wonderful theory.

Or does it?

I swear, I'm only going to test it out – that's what I tell myself as I tentatively take a piece of parchment out of my bag, along with a quill, and write Lily Potter in tiny, careless print across the top of the page. There; it doesn't look good at all! Ha; I knew it! Thrilled, I write it again, just for the joy of knowing it doesn't sound good. Lily Potter. Disgusting! Again; Lily Potter. Even more disgusting this time! Now I've written it three times, which means I've successfully proven that Lily Potter is a terrible name for me. Only one more problem – if I wrote it three times in thirty seconds, that means it's easy and fun to write, which would be a _very _bad thing.

Determined to prove that it's horrible like I originally assumed, I try it again, but this time in cursive – loosely, not trying to make the letters elegant like I normally do. I look it over carefully then, and find that a signature has just kind of worked into the name by itself – easily, without effort. The actual name even sounds better to me now; Lily Potter. I can live with signing my name like that, I realize. I shake my head though; no! Why am I doing this in the first place? It's so childish; I'd just established that trying out married names is for little kids, as mentioned. I'm no longer eight years old – I'm not allowed to write Lily Potter on a piece of paper and get a cheap thrill from it.

Bam! And, at this exact, inconvenient moment, however, Anne throws open the doors of the Great Hall and immediately sprints over to sit down by me. Oh crap, I groan in my head; I can _not _let her see my parchment – it has Lily Potter written on it four or five times! I attempt to stash it back into my bag to burn later, but before I can even try, Anne is already sitting down next to me, beaming, and asking, "Hey Lils – what are you doing?"

"Nothing," I say to her, a little too quickly, putting my hand purposefully over the parchment, hiding the evidence with my robe sleeve. "Hello Anne."

Instantly, she becomes suspicious and tries to eye the parchment. "What's that?"

"Nothing," I repeat, trying in vain to speed-crumple it and throw it into my bag. "Nothing at all."

"No, let me see it," she says, attempting to snatch it out of my hand.

"No!" I hold tightly onto it, refusing to let it go.

"I'm sure it's not that big of a deal, let me see it," Anne says, tugging a little harder.

"It _is _a big deal," I argue, tugging just as hard. "Let go."

"No, I want to see it," she insists, her grip even tighter. "I'm your best friend!"

"No!" I whine, making a valiant effort to liberate the poor parchment from Anne's grasp and disposing of it as quickly as I could. Unluckily enough for me, the paper, undergoing plenty of stress from the two teenage girls going after it, tears, giving Anne the part of the parchment that has my most elegant Lily Potter on it. I watch uncertainly as she takes it in for a moment, my cheeks looking infected, they're so red; she waits four seconds before giving me the explosion I'm expecting.

"OH MY FUCKING GOSH, LILY, YOU'RE IN LOVE!" she hollers at the top of her voice, causing a few people to turn and give us strange looks. Not caring about what people are probably thinking, unlike me, she goes ahead and makes me wince as she hugs me tightly against her body.

"Language," I remind her weakly into her shirt, hoping she'll let me go soon so that I can resurface for a bit of oxygen.

Uncaring to the one word I'd uttered, Anne proceeds by going into a huge stream of squeals, exclamations, and proclamations boasting her own intelligence, which annoys me to the point where I simply don't want to listen. I tune her out and choose to fret quietly to myself until she stops to take a breath, at which point I tell her, "We'll talk _later_, all right? At lunch, in the common room."

"I want to talk _now_," Anne bleats. "I've wanted to talk for ages!"

"Well, I say _no_," I say forcefully. "I don't want to talk about it when there are people around us that can hear me, because there are a lot of complications in what you just saw."

"Of _course _there are complications," Anne says, putting delicate stress on the second word of her sentence as she rolls her eyes. "With you, Lily, it wouldn't be normal if there _weren't _any complications – you overanalyze everything."

"I have to," I say with a pout.

"No, you don't," she says, shaking her head. "You just like to think you do because you hate throwing trust out into the wind. That's okay though, for now; I'll wait until lunch somehow, and then we'll talk more about it, since we're not allowed to be having this conversation right now, apparently. Vous faire comprend?"

"Huh?"

"It means 'do you understand' in French," she translates impatiently. "My cousin taught me when she was learning the language and wanted me to stop eating all her cookies when I was seven and she was fourteen. But, waving that aside, just tell me – are you good with that? You're going to be very honest with me today when we go to the dormitory during lunch?"

"Fine," I say resignedly. "I'll tell you everything."

"Excellent." With a broad grin, she gives me a more humane hug rather than one that seems to want to break my bones, and starts picking out some breakfast to start on. I observe her progress, and I try to talk to her about something else that's not related to what she's seen me do, but I know it's an effort I shouldn't work so hard to maintain; it's perfectly clear to me that all I can think about right now is how I'm going to use my newly-bought four hours today to get a good explanation for Anne in the afternoon.

It's going to be a _really _long day today – I can already ascertain it.

**&&&**

I have to hand it to her – Anne has been quite admirably patient during the agonizing period of time that she had to wait to be able to talk about James with me.

Honestly, I'd half-expected her to crack with anticipation during the day, considering her reaction this morning, but I'd been quite wrong, I'll admit it; Anne was amazingly good about keeping her big mouth shut when there were people around us that had even a remote chance of overhearing our conversation and ratting me out when I wasn't ready to be. I wasn't able to fully forget about what I was going to be condemned to explaining later, of course, but I came as close as was possible, because Anne behaved so well. She was acting like a composite volcano ready to implode throughout History of Magic just before lunch, yes, but she managed to hold her magma in until she races into our dormitory upstairs in Gryffindor Tower, bumping me along as she went. As we skid to a halt outside of our door and Anne opens it with fumbling hands, it's difficult for me to restrain my laughter; she's _so close _and she's been dying to scream all day. She reminds me of a little kid waiting for her party to end so she could open birthday presents; it's hilarious.

She does get the door open within a few extra seconds, and the moment we are closed in and sitting on our beds – _finally _– Anne is able to fully blow up.

"I KNEW IT THE WHOLE TIME!" she hollers at the top of her voice, running all over the room to work off the nerves she'd been holding back. "THE WHOLE TIME! YOU'RE SO IN _LOVE_, LILY EVANS! YOU WERE WRITING LILY POTTER AND OH MY GOSH, I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO _DIE _WITH HAPPINESS WHEN I SAW THAT – YOU'RE SEEING THE LIGHT, HON, I'M SO DAMN PROUD OF YOU! (I get a hug that crushes my rib cage here) OH, WAIT UNTIL YOU GET _TOGETHER _WITH HIM! HE'S SO SWEET, AND ADORABLE, AND LOVELY, AND YOU'RE GOING TO BE WONDERING WHERE HE'S BEEN ALL YOUR LIFE, BECAUSE YOU'RE BOTH SO DAMN _PERFECT _FOR EACH OTHER –"

Clearly, there's more Anne wishes to add to this rant, but I cut her off anyway because she's making too much noise, by saying roughly, "Anne, sweetie, if you don't want me to die of humiliation rather than happiness, please stop being so loud."

"Sorry." Instantly, her voice goes back to an inside one as she sits us both down on our respective beds, and her eyes are soft as she gazes at me. "Oh, Lily, I'm so, so, so, so proud of you. You have no idea."

"I was being pathetic and seeing if our names would work together or not," I mumble, blushing. "It's not like I was being lovesick and stupid, Annie – it wasn't anything like that, I promise."

"You're in _love_," she reminds me grandly, as though this is some kind of cause for celebration. "I don't care what you do so long as you can tell me straight-out that you love James!"

"But, see, that's the thing," I say, avoiding looking at her as I pick viciously at my thumb nail out of edginess. "I don't _know _if I love him. I was testing out if my name would work with his out of pure curiosity – if I'm supposed to be with him like you and pretty much the whole rest of the world thinks I should, our names have to work. I was hoping to see that they _wouldn't _work together so that I had another reason on my side. That was it."

"So you're saying you don't love him?" Anne's eyebrows arch higher than I've ever seen them go before.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying," I answer. "I'm not going to deny that I don't hate him anymore, because I really don't, but I'm not going to say I love him either."

"Then how _do_ you think you feel about him?" Anne's tone dares me to find another, better alternative to the one she's suggesting, even if she feels that I don't have a prayer in her challenge.

"I…" I take a moment to think about it; how should I put this? "I…I don't _love _him, but I suppose I can say I _admire _him. I mean, he's _kind _of cute – not the sexy-as-hell cute, but the decent-looking-guy-next-door cute. He's good at everything, which annoys me sometimes, because I try so hard to do well and he can just cruise by without a care in the world while still producing similar results. But he's just _there _to me, Annie; he's like a tile on the kitchen floor that happens to be slightly more interesting than the rest. He's the first person that has ever made me feel this way, so I suppose you could call it a crush for lack of a better word, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're suddenly _together_."

Anne sighs roughly, taking in what I'm saying and retaining it (for once); she appears to be aggravated and ready to give me a lecture, but she surprises me by saying in the gentlest tone I've ever heard her use, "Lily, you know as well as I do that you're lying to me – lying through your teeth. You don't just _like _him, you _love _him. Yes, there's a fine line between the two, but the thing is, you've already crossed it."

"How do I know?" I whisper, biting down hard on my lip again like I do when I'm nervous.

"You just _do_," she says. "It's not in the parchment you wrote Lily Potter on; it's in the way you felt when you were writing on it that tells you. How did you feel when you wrote those two words together?"

"Like there was magic in the air," I admit sincerely. "It was so weird – I spent years developing a specific signature with my real name, Lily Evans, and when I wrote Lily Potter, the signature just…happened."

"If you can be that happy from something that trivial, my friend, you know you're in love," she says, smiling. "Say it to me – right now."

"What, that I love him?"

"Yes," she says, relishing the word. "Tell me you love him."

"Can this really be love?" I ask lamely in a last-ditch attempt to understand my own feelings.

"It is," Anne says solemnly. "It always has been and it always will be."

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and say, "Okay, here I go." She nods, and I manage to stutter, "I-I love him." The words are foreign on my tongue – I can't believe that I'm not only saying them, but that some kind of a weight has been lifted from me. I'm not mentally insane – I'm only in love. It's sick and disgusting, yes, but I can almost laugh with relief that my brain is not deteriorating after all – it's only a pile of teenage mush, which is forgivable. To a certain extent.

"Who?"

"James Potter," I say a little louder. "I love James Potter." It's getting easier, but I'm still having a hard time comprehending that what I'm saying is for real – I was always the girl that vowed never to condemn herself to the disease called love!

"Really?" Anne's grin couldn't get any bigger if it tried.

"Yes, really," I say, sighing. "I love him, I love him, I love him." I fall back on my bed, my head flopping to the pillow. "It hurts, but I do."

"Congratulations," Anne says, her tone somehow light even though I feel like I'm dying or something. "You've told me, now all you have to do is tell _him_."

I spring right back up like a jack-in-the-box. "Say what?"

Anne's smile is understanding. "I said that you've told me, so now you have to tell _him_."

"No!" I wail. "It's hard enough with you, and you're my best friend!"

"Lily, how the hell is anything going to happen unless you _make_ it happen?" she inquires. It clearly is a rhetorical question, but I choose to answer it anyway.

"Maybe I don't want anything to happen," I say. "Maybe this should just stay between us."

Anne raises an eyebrow. "Allow me to look skeptically at you until you give me the response I know you're thinking of."

In truth, I don't know what response I'm thinking of in the first place, so I say, with full honesty, "I don't know what you mean."

She slaps her forehead with the palm of her hand. "LILY!"

"What?" I ask, annoyed.

"You're so damn stupid!" she insists. "I thought we already went over this!"

She's so aggravated with me, in fact, that I sigh and say, "I know, I know, I should make a move, but Anne, this has happened _really_ fast – too fast for my liking."

"I know – that's the point!" Anne's eyes have this maniacal gleam in them that is making me uncomfortable. "It's _supposed_ to go fast, _supposed_ to sweep you off your feet! It's your first love, Lily; hiding from it, or worse, trying to calculate it is only going to ruin it. Strip away all of the barriers you're putting up here and look at it for the simple task that it is – say that you love him, like you did thirty seconds ago!"

I bite my lip. "It's really that easy?"

"_Yes_," she says, putting special stress on the word. "_Yes_, it is. You saw how I did it – three words, Lils, and he could be all yours. Don't you want that? Don't you want to try? He wants you, sweetie – he wants you so bad, and you want him just as much."

"Okay, so let's talk hypothetically here," I say. "Maybe James Potter does want _me_, of all people. And, maybe, I want him too, as you believe." She makes a noise to indicate that she believes this with good reason, but I ignore her as I continue, "All right, so I tell him that I want him and that I love him. He's thrilled, and he says great, we're a couple. We hug, kiss, go out, and become an item – yada, yada, yada. We live in each other's pockets for a few weeks, and voila, nothing in the world matters but him for me, me for him – lovely, eh? Well, then once those miraculous months are gone and we break up, then what's left for me? I would've given him the very best of me already, and he'd take it with him, leaving me with the sad, ruined parts of myself. I don't want that, Annie – I want the love of a lifetime, the one who actually needs the finest of me, not the disposable kind that chips away at my personality until I have nothing left."

Anne chuckles, low and dark, but says, "Lily honey, this _is_ the love of a lifetime. It's the real deal – what you've been waiting for your whole life. James is going to be the very last one to treat you like a disposable dish-rag; the day that happens is the day Sirius Black actually settles down with a girl for good."

I sigh. "Well, when you put it that way, you seem quite decided…"

"That's because I am," she says. "Are you gonna argue further with me on the matter, or are you gonna do something about it?" The expression on her face urges me to do the latter of the two options.

So, to compromise, I sigh once more and say, "Well, maybe…if you give me a few weeks to think about what I'm going to tell him…"

Anne nearly falls off of her bed. "A few _weeks_?! Bloody hell, how much time do you _need_, girl?"

"Lots," I admit.

"No, you don't," she says. "Let's go on a little field trip here, shall we? Obviously, this conversation is doing you little good; you need hands-on experience. Come along, love." She bounces up from her bed and offers me her arm; when I take it, she takes me out of the safety of our dormitory to go to the Great Hall, where the entire school is having their lunch. After scanning the crowd for a few moments, Anne points out James for me – he is away from his Marauders, eating quickly so to join them in a few minutes, his messy hair easily visible among all of the neat heads I can see. I swallow down the world's biggest lump in my throat and whisper, "There he is. What about him?" I have a sick feeling I already know the answer though.

"Go!" Anne suddenly pushes me towards the table, and I, horrified and confused, rebel against her to leave the hall. "Talk to him!"

"Okay, enough field trip please," I say weakly. "Please let me go back to the dormitory?" Why did mums give their children time-outs to their rooms when they were kids and didn't have any use for them? It's now that I need a huge time-out, but am not able to get one. It's the irony of life, I suppose; it's so cruel.

"No." Anne grabs my wrists and closes her hands on top of them, covering them, and steps on the back of my heels to keep me walking. I feel like a prisoner as I am all but hauled into the Great Hall again towards James, who has, by now, seen what Anne is doing and is giving us very curious looks. Seeing this, Anne only doubles her efforts and manages to get me to James. My head is whirling, a massive pile of marshmallow – I am blank, I tell myself. This is not happening to me. I am in bed and having a bad dream. I will wake up soon. Won't I?

"James!" Anne's loud voice brings me right back to earth, unfortunately – it sounds as if I'm not waking up from this dream after all. "James, Lily has something to tell you!"

"No, I don't," I try to plead with him. "Really, I don't, James, please believe me, not this nut-job behind me…"

"Bullshit," Anne says to quiet me. "Listen to her, James – if she values her life, she will tell you something you need to know." My sovereignty is still out of my reach, since Anne has attached herself to my wrists so that I don't run away like she knows I want to, so I am forced to rest there, helplessly babbling at the poor, bewildered boy that there's no reason to make a fuss over this. I can't even begin to imagine how bad we must look in his eyes.

Thankfully, James hesitates for a few moments but orders, "Anne, let go of her hands, please."

Anne finally releases me, resentment written all over her face, and I breathe a sigh of relief. However, this conversation isn't over yet – since I'm free, Anne sees fit to insist, "James, listen to Lily; seriously, you're going to be making the biggest mistake of your life if you don't."

I shove my heel into her knee, making her buckle slightly and squeal. "We're so sorry – we don't mean to bother you; Anne is simply making a fuss about nothing," I say sweetly, hoping I sound on-the-surface and not as frantic as I truly am. My stomach has just about fallen out of my body, and I'm sweating in places I've never sweated before. Not a pretty sight at all. Anne, uncaring to how much I would like to go upstairs at the moment, opens her mouth to say something else, but this time, James interrupts her. The strange thing, though, is that when he starts to speak, his words are directed at me, rather than her.

"Lily, you don't have to tell me anything," he says, his voice smoother and cooler than ice rink. "I don't want to hear what you apparently have to say to me."

"But, but, but," Anne sputters.

"Stop," he says to her as well, his voice one of deadly serenity. "You're both acting like you're twelve or something; pushing each other at guys, giggling, that sort of thing. I'm not amused, and I'm not stupid either."

"We never said you were stupid," I attempt to amend.

"No, but you implied it," he points out. "You think I don't know what Anne was going to make you do? You think I only stopped you to save you the trouble or something?"

Well, yes, I did think that, but apparently I'm not supposed to, so I keep my mouth shut. My entire body is shaking purely from nerves, the nightmarish reality sinking in more horribly than anything else, and I watch silently as Anne protests, "What did you think we were doing, then?"

"That you wanted Lily to say that she had a crush on me against her will," he counters scathingly. I've never seen him so vindictive before – his hazel eyes are alive with annoyance, and while his expression hasn't changed drastically, there's a hardness to it that scares the hell out of me. I'm instantly hit with the lovely fantasy of running upstairs, leaping under my bed, and hiding there for all eternity, even if it's kind of uncharacteristic for me. What can I say? James has a habit of bringing out the worst in me sometimes.

Anne recovers from this shock a lot quicker than I do, and she defiantly says, "So what if she _was_ going to say that? What would you do if she really did have a crush on you and you talked to her how you are with me?" Her voice is taunting and loud; several heads are turning in our direction. It makes my already tomato-red face go even redder; it looks diseased by this point. I swear Anne is going to be the death of me one day.

"If she likes me, she should be able to say it to me without you having to manhandle her down here and obligate her to say something," he shoots back at her. "Besides, I've had enough of her messing with my head – I don't want to be the pawn in your little games anymore." His words are now directed to me for the second time, and I force myself to look him in the face as he says, "Lily, I thought we were at least _friends_. I thought we were over the evasiveness and the foolish diversions, since we're seventeen years old now and not that twelve. What's the matter with you?"

His eyes seem to be on fire, and as I stare into them, I finally see the man that James Potter has grown to become, rather than the boy with a million yards of potential that I used to see. And, in the reflection off his pupils, I see myself – so comparatively insignificant – and I wonder why Anne condemned me to this. He wants an answer though, no matter how I got here, and he wants one now; so I say hoarsely, "I'm sorry."

Anne, for once, is quiet. The three of us are standing there – me with my arms around my middle, Anne with her hands on her hips, and James in near combat position – and we watch at each other. We just watch; it's as simple as that. But, after a few minutes tick by without any kind of relenting, Anne straightens up and says, "Well, I have no more business here, I see; I'll see you two later." With this, she walks away – just like that! I can't believe her – when I next see her, I'm going to kill her, I decide. But I'm really not able to think about it right now – I have to figure out what I'm going to say to James, who is still right in front of me and not moving, despite Anne's departure.

I look into his eyes for inspiration, but I can't see anything – the emotion in them is too murky, too full, too carefully concealed (how does he hide everything so fast?) to be deciphered. I have no idea what to do, and I'm mortified beyond all levels of comprehension; so, I do the only thing I can ever think to do in a situation such as this – I turn away from that penetrating face, flee the Great Hall, crawl into my bed in my dormitory, and hide under my covers until the bell rings to tell me lunch is over and life must, unfortunately, continue on.

**&&&**

After school today, I storm straight up to my dormitory, avoiding all forms of eye contact or conversation in the corridors as I go, and I keep my pace brisk until I am in my desired destination. When I get there, I sit on my bed, wipe my face clear of all emotion, and I wait. I just wait.

My waiting is quiet and requires a lot of patience – patience I don't feel like giving, I might add – but it is beautifully rewarded when, roughly fifteen minutes later, Anne bursts in, breathing heavily and looking around for something. I can only guess how this moment appears in her eyes; a quiet dormitory she runs into, thinking its empty, with me in the middle of it, calm and detached, lingering there for her. She stops short, facing me, her face filled with disbelief, while I only look right back at her.

"Hey Lil," she says, her tone expressing severe bewilderment. "What's up?"

"Anneliese," I say politely, keeping my voice on-the-surface, as I had with James. "Sit please."

"Wha–" Anne starts to say, but I cut her off by saying a bit louder, "_Sit_, Anne."

She obeys me and sits on her bed, and I clear my throat. "I'm going to tell you this in the most diplomatic way I can," I say. I take a breath in preparation, and promptly holler, "What the hell was up with you hauling me like a sack of Christmas presents towards James and embarrassing me like that?!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she defends herself, her volume slightly raised. "I thought you'd say it! I thought he'd listen!"

"James is a fucking human being," I growl at her. "He won't fucking sit there and let me stumble through whatever fucking speech you wanted me to present him with – no one fucking _does_ that or listens to it, Annie, no one."

Anne has to work extremely hard to stifle her laughter here. "You said the word you can't stand four times in the same sentence," she points out, her eyes alight with amusement. "Lily, you're really, really mad at me!" It's beyond me why she finds so much joy in this statement.

"Yes, I am!" I shout. "You just ruined bloody everything!"

The anguish in my voice is real; noticing this, Anne quits smiling so much and her tone is more business-like as she says, "Look, I'm sorry, all right? I didn't know it would be so disastrous. Normally when stuff like that happened, it would turn out all right. This time it didn't, and I am, as previously stated, sorry about it."

"Being sorry isn't going to fix it!" I wail, suddenly feeling more despair than anger now. "He probably hates me for being so brain-dead, and he won't want to speak to me ever again because I looked awful at lunch today; I wouldn't talk to me either, if I was him."

"Relax, Lil," she says soothingly. "Don't get overdramatic on me here – James is not going to hate you for what we did. He'll definitely speak to you again; I mean, come on – you're his Lily! He can't function correctly if he doesn't say your name at least two or three times a day; I would know, I dated him. You're going to be just fine – just keep your head and tell him the truth."

"I'm not ready to," I protest. "Annie, I can still barely have self-assurance in the theory that I love him – how do I make him believe me when I don't even believe myself?"

"You have to, Lily," she stubbornly insists. "There are some things in life that you just have to _do_ – without any kind of preparation, without any kind of doubt." She sighs and says, "Since you seem to work best with clichés, let me give you one – you are listening way too much to your head, and not to your heart."

"I am not," I begin to argue hotly, but I am interrupted as Anne continues in a slightly more forceful voice, "Here's another – it was love at first sight and you need to stay true to it."

"It wasn't," I try to tell her, but she goes on at the top of her lungs, "Ooh, here's one last one – Cinderella needs to stop listening to those inner stepsisters in her head who think she's not good enough and go for the goddamn Prince that she knows she wants!"

I freeze at the mention of Cinderella. "Annie, when I was attempting to keep your relationship with James intact, I always felt like the Fairy Godmother making a move on that poor Prince when Cinderella – you – deserved him."

Anne giggles. "You're so silly. It's the other way around, when you take the time to think about it – I was the Fairy Godmother testing him out for a little while and depriving my client Cinderella of the fairytale I was supposed to give her. But, the moral of this whole mess overall, my love, is that life doesn't always give you this clear of a happy ending – you are on the elevator rather than the stairs like the rest of us, and I suggest you finally take advantage of that, because you are luckier than about half of England."

I bite my lip. "So I'm guessing it's a good idea to talk to him about what went down today tomorrow?"

She nods, her smile wry. "Yes, it is."

I exhale slowly, allowing myself to calm down. "Well, I'm definitely going to apologize about today, but I don't know if I'm going to tell him that I kind of like him."

"That shouldn't be a problem, because you don't kind of like him," Anne says. "You _love_ him – something he should know."

I throw her my famous Look. "Maybe."

Anne opens her mouth to disagree, but instead of doing that, she says more kindly, "Okay."

This simple word wells me up with gratefulness that I'm not going to be pushed/challenged in any way; I get up from my bed and give Anne a hug. "Thank you," I say.

"No problem." Anne's smile is playful as she smacks my behind to send me back to my part of the room. "I know you'll do what's right when it comes down to the moment."

I glance back over my shoulder at her while extracting my homework from my bag. "How do you know that, Annie?" I'm genuinely curious; I can't see why she can say something like that so decidedly when I feel like I'm going to explode because I don't know how I'm going to talk to him tomorrow.

Anne smiles at me. "How do I know? Well, think of it this way…so long as a world-class chef – let's call him Pierre (she puts on a terrible French accent here) – puts the right ingredients into his or her mixture, the resulting cheesecake is going to taste amazing. Because it's the way Pierre – has trained, his fingers are going to do the same special things every single time; so, even if Pierre is nervous and thinks he's going to crash and burn because he doesn't have any mental confidence, his fingers are going to do what they always do since they don't know how to do anything else. That's how I know."

Obviously, she's trying to sound sophisticated and clever, but she comes off as more hungry and muddled. Holding back the grin I long to show, I ask, "In plain English, how do you know I'm going to do the right thing?"

Anne laughs. "Because, Lily, I know that deep inside that head of yours, there is a group of little brain cells that know exactly what should be done, and they are going to break through and do what they do best, against all the odds."

"You think so?" I normally don't do this, but right now, I crave comfort from my best friend, to know that someone, at least, has faith in me when I can't don't have any of myself.

She gets up, joins me, and squeezes my hand for the briefest moment. "Yes, I think so." I receive one more smile before Anne goes to find her own homework, and it's enough – Anne may be a bit of a chameleon when it comes to her personality, which is whatever suits her for the minute, but I know that the one thing she's never going to change is her never-ending confidence that I'm going to get James Potter one of these days.

It's times like these where I really wish Anne and I could trade bodies for at least a little while – she handles confrontations so much better than I do.

Internally, I bang my head against an imaginary wall; even though I'm probably only going to say sorry to him about what went down today, I still feel cursed – screwed, even – because I don't even have the capability of saying something that simple to a boy I shouldn't care about in the first place.

Someone, anyone, please hear my plea and help me.

* * *

**A/N: Yes, you're right, this is definitely not my best work. There's really no reason for this, since I took my sweet time writing the chapter, but I couldn't get it to play out very well. On to more important things, however, there were a couple of major things that happened that you are probably quite curious about, so let me just say that I meant for this chapter to not make sense – see, life almost never makes any sense at all, and it's not until later that we discover why. My intent for this story was to make it as close to real-life as I could, and that means I have to confuse you, especially since I'm writing in first person. So, don't worry about anything – guess away at what/why things went on, and wait for the next chapter when everything is explained. :) All right, that being said, please go right ahead and review for me, and everyone wins! Thank you in advance!**


	15. Of the Complex Man that is James Potter

**A/N: Yes, here it is – the chapter you've all been waiting for! Pretty awesome, eh? I know I'm psyched. The reason it took so long was because I was thinking way too hard about how much I wanted James to tell – I decided on a lot, so that's why the chapter's so long. And it didn't help that I had to sift through the previous chapters of this story several times to write it either. So, please read, enjoy, and review, and don't forget that there ****is**** another chapter after this one!!

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**

The first, somewhat alert thought that creeps into the back of my mind this morning is 'this is the best morning ever.'

I can feel the mid-spring sunshine beating down on my face and my hair, I can hear the footsteps around the room, and I can smell the remnants of hairspray around me, but the lovely thing is, none of these things are currently bothering me. I open my eyes at snail's speed, absorbing it all in, and smile to myself as I stare at the ceiling, my brain making no haste in starting up. This leisure-time is a luxury I'm not used to receiving, and I love every moment of it; today is going to be _my_ Saturday. I wonder what I'm going to do today…probably hang out by the lake and finally finish reading the novel I've been working on for the past few months. I'm nearly done, and I can't wait to see the resolution – maybe today will be my lucky day. I also want to go to Honeydukes and stock up on chocolate; I'm running a bit low, and I always need my comfort food around. I sigh – it's so nice to simply lay here, at peace with everything, not a care in the world except for what I'm going to eat. I should do this more often.

However, my silent serenity is more short-lived than I'd been hoping for – not even four minutes after I officially wake up, a pair of hands clutch onto my shoulders and Anne's very familiar whine comes up in the form of, "Lily, _please_ wake up!"

"I'm already awake," I say irately, turning my head to look at her, looming above my bed. "Do you mind? I was half-asleep."

"How can you be awake, but half-asleep at the same time?" Anne inquired, her head tilted and her expression curious.

"Easily," I grouch. "Now what's up?"

"You," she says. "It's presently eleven thirty, and you need to be _awake_, so that you can make use of the rest of your day."

Eleven thirty? Wow, I thought it was around nine, maybe ten at latest. Ah, well, it's a pleasant surprise anyway – I'm notorious for not sleeping very much. I sigh once more and say, "What if I want to enjoy my morning in bed?"

"Well, you can't, because I want to get out of the castle and do something fun, and I want you to come with me," she explains.

"You want to do that _every_ weekend," I point out.

"And you _never_ want to do it, so I'm hoping today is our lucky day," Anne says. "C'mon!" She proceeds by pulling at my arm, attempting to drag me out of my bed. She has little success – when I'm not in the mood to go anywhere, no one can make me. Recognizing her lost battle, Anne resorts to the whining again; "Please, Lily," she pleads. "Do you want to go for a swim? I'm okay with that. Or we could get chocolate from Honeydukes – you love that stuff."

I don't know how she figured out I want to go chocolate-shopping today, but I suppose since she's my best friend, she kind of knew subconsciously. She could possibly be telepathic, but somehow, I doubt it. "Maybe," I eventually say, after a long time of little thought. "For now, I want to rest."

"I completely understand," she says, nodding respectfully to me. I nod back and settle back into my covers once more, but all of a sudden, my arm gets yanked and my body tumbles out of my bed, courtesy of Anne. I start to gasp and sputter, trying to comprehend what just happened, but Anne has other plans – she picks me up off the floor, throws some random clothes from my drawer at me, and jostles me into the bathroom. "Hurry up and change so we can have breakfast and relax by the lake or something!" she calls to me.

Indignantly, I open the bathroom door and glare at her. "That wasn't very nice, nor was it very understanding," I protest.

"Oh well," Anne says merrily. "Get changed."

I make a face at her before I close the bathroom door – I might as well change and go along with what Anne has planned for us today, even if I don't agree. After all, if she accompanies me down to Honeydukes, she will probably be able to convince me to buy myself a sinful snack – she's the only girl I know who can force me to stuff pure sugar down my throat in mammoth quantities but not feel bad about it, even if I somewhat feel I deserve it. _That_ is sheer talent, and I applaud her for it.

I begin to vigorously brush my teeth at this point, and as I do, I decide that if such treats are involved, it could almost be worth my being dragged out of bed against my will this morning. Almost.

**&&&**

By the time I'm dressed and ready for action, it is twelve thirty and time for lunch; the first thing Anne says to me when I emerge from the bathroom is that she is starving and wonders why it took me such a long time to finish. I apologize, and my words are immediately accepted, since arguing is a waste of time when one is hungry; as we walk downstairs together, Anne contemplates aloud what we are going to do for food.

"Do we really have to go to the Great Hall?" she wonders. "Shouldn't we just get straight to Hogsmeade and eat there? Or should we have chocolate for lunch?" Her eyes light up when she comes up with this one. "Ooh, Lily, let's do that! I think we should have chocolate for lunch!"

"That sounds nice," I comment. "But I think we ought to stop in for a quick something in the Great Hall beforehand – you know, so we can get some nutrients into our systems."

Anne taps her chin and pulls on her thinking face. "That might actually be a good idea."

"Yes, I've been known to come up with some occasionally," I say.

"I think we'll do it," she announces. "My dad's always going on about how I should lay off the chocolate and eat something good for me." She wrinkles her nose with revulsion. "At first I thought, what the fuck does he know? But now that you mention it, maybe it's decent advice after all."

"Annie, don't say that word," I request.

She blows a raspberry. "Why not?"

"It's nasty," I say. "You should only use it if you must."

"I had to this time," she tries to convince me. "It demonstrates my…passion for the subject."

"Nice try," I say with a smirk. "But just don't."

Anne rolls her eyes and opens the door to the Great Hall, allowing me to enter before her so that I won't go on harassing her about her cussing problem. I decide not to, since I'm so incredibly good to her, and she's grateful enough for my choice that we walk to our Gryffindor table for lunch in silence. Most of the house is already there, laughing and chucking things at each other as they always do, but we ignore them as we take a seat in our usual spots. I help myself to bread and chicken to make myself a sandwich, and Anne happily works her way through her pile of fish sticks; we see no need to talk, because eating is top priority at the moment, but we finish relatively quickly. Maybe we are more famished than we thought we were – I don't really know. We sit there, contentedly smiling at one another as we consider whether or not to eat anything else, when Anne says, "That was good."

"It was," I agree. "I didn't know how hungry I was until I started eating."

"You have the biggest stomach of any girl I've ever met," Anne says, partially teasing and partially serious as she looks disbelievingly at me.

"I'm sure there are women who eat more than me," I object.

"Erm, I doubt it," Anne says. "You pretty much take the cake."

I smirk at her, but say, "Thanks, love."

"Don't mention it." She exhales slowly and pats her stomach with a certain satisfaction. "So…what do you say to some treat at the Three Broomsticks?"

"I say we should probably wait for a little while," I tell her. "Don't you think so? We've just finished having a _Hogwarts_ lunch – those are always heavy on oil."

Anne shrugs. "So? We should still get a sweet drink there – it's good for the soul."

"Do you care at all about your health?"

"Not really," she says. "So are you coming or not?"

I close my eyes and pat my stomach too – it feels extremely bloated. "I think I won't; the saccharine fumes are not going to help me in any way."

Anne rolls her eyes at me, but gets up from the bench. "So what are you going to do today?"

I shrug. "Read by the lake, probably."

She makes a bizarre noise to express her disappointment with my decision, but says, "Okay, you enjoy yourself, then, because I might end up challenging Sirius to a butterbeer chugging contest when I stop in at the pub – that means I'm going to be puking my guts out for days."

"Are you going to ask him to meet you there or something?" I ask, confused. How will she meet Sirius at the Three Broomsticks if she's only speculating the possibility of challenging him to a chugging competition?

Anne snorts. "Of course not! He's going to be there already, flirting with that barmaid – Rosmerta's older sister, Isabelle."

I snort as well. "Oh – right, I forgot."

"I'll try to forgive you," Anne says. She opens her mouth to say something else, but at this exact moment, the doors open and, of course, James Potter enters the Hall, because it is the least convenient time for him to do so. A few heads turn at his arrival, but Anne's expression is interested as he completely ignores them and joins his friends at their end of the table. Sirius hails him over with flailing arms, and James laughs as he sits down; Peter is laughing with him, and Remus is, as he does a lot of the time, trying his best to back out of the situation. Anne surveys them for a few moments, but says, "Lily, there he is."

I glance at the Marauders as well. "Yes, there he is," I say coolly. "So?"

"He's sitting about seven meters away from you," she says, her tone pointed.

"Yes, so he is," I say, nodding. "What about it?"

"_Lily_!" Anne says my name in frustration. "You know what you have to do."

"No, I don't know what I have to do," I say. Actually, I do know exactly what she is going to suggest, and that's why I'm playing dumb – the mere thought of telling James I'm sorry and talking to him for more than a few minutes by myself sends icicles of fear exploding somewhere in my large intestine. I can't let her force me to fix things with him.

"Fine, I'll tell you," she says. "You have to go to him and bloody tell him you're in love with him!"

This solution is even worse than an apology – and I tell her that. This doesn't stop Anne, though, from persisting, "Come on; how is he ever going to know you feel for him unless you admit it to his face?"

"That's the point – I don't want him to know," I clarify, crossing my arms. "It's still horribly befuddling, Anne, and he shouldn't have to see me when I'm so out of it."

"Well, you're not letting _me_ bring you back to earth, so I'm hoping he can do something for you instead," she says. "Now _go,_ Lily – this moment is ideal!"

"How is it the ideal moment?" I demand. "Annie, he is with his friends right now, and the fact remains that he now has official reason to hate me! And he's used it!"

Anne snorts. "What bullshit. Of course he doesn't hate you!"

"How do you know?" I ask.

"I don't," she says, her tone softer since it's not a remarkably brilliant answer. "Only James does, which is why you should talk to him." Her voice strengthens at the end of the phrase when she figures out how to properly manipulate the situation.

I take a calming breath to convince myself it's a bad idea to hurt her. "Annie, I'm not going to talk to him. He's had enough of me, and I've had enough of him too. We're through." Even as the words come out of my mouth, I can't help but feel my stomach twist up anyway – I know I should come clean about everything and impose for him to do the same, but at all the while, I'm not one of those good, brave people who take risks. I'm the one who watches and wishes I had their courage instead of doing anything about it. Anne, however, refuses to buy my reasoning – she's got other ideas.

She stands me up on my feet, and looks me right in the eye, like she has on a few other occasions as well. After a moment of successfully staring me down, then, she says, "Lily Evans, if that boy over there does _not_ tell you that he loves you when you talk to him long enough, I will allow you to buy me my clothes for the next five years without questioning any socially-fatal fashion decision you make, _and_ go off of chocolate for the rest of my life while you gorge yourself stupid using my money. I'm that damn serious. Tell him _right_ _now_ because if you don't, you're going to go through the rest of this year and seventh year without him – he's pretty much done waiting for you, in case you haven't noticed. For once in your romantically-deficient life, _go for it_."

I search my mind to come up with an answer to this extraordinary proclamation, but Anne doesn't give me the opportunity to – she goes right ahead and gives me a hard shove in the direction of James's spot at the table. I stumble as I go, and skid to a halt roughly a meter away from the Marauder area, cursing her in my head all the while. I'm about to turn back instantly upon stopping, but to my very great misfortune, Sirius spots me and says, "Oy, Evans, what's up?"

Three other bodies twist around to look at me, one of them being James's – his expression is bewildered, but also a little wary, for reasons we both already know. Hating Anne for putting me in a second awkward position in two days, I stammer, "Nothing much. I'm just…here."

"Where's that chick you hang out with, Anne?" Sirius searches around my immediate area for her.

"Yes, Lily, where is she?" James inquires, his voice on-the-surface, obviously suspecting her involvement in my current positioning.

"Over there," I say, pointing vaguely in her direction. "But I'm not here to pass on a message or anything for her."

Four sets of eyebrows rise when these words are spoken, and this annoys me – in fact, it annoys me to the point where I have new strength, despite where I am and how frightened I had been only seconds before. "Yes, I'm telling the truth," I say angrily. "I'm here because I need to talk to you, James."

"Okay," he says simply.

Taken aback by the single word and the casualness behind it, I say, "I can't talk to you in front of your friends."

"Aww, why not?" Peter asks. "It makes us feel left-out."

Ignoring Sirius's snort, Remus, attempting to help me, as always, intervenes by saying, "If Lily wants to speak with James, I think we should let her."

"We were joking, Moony, relax," Peter says, laughing.

"I know, really, Moony," Sirius echoes, chortling along. "Are we no longer allowed to mess about around here or something?"

I take my attention away from Sirius and Peter, and focus it back onto James at this point. "So can you come with me and permit me to say a few things?"

As expected, the bitterness from the other day is evident in his eyes, and he becomes silent. Remus, Sirius, and Peter stop conversing as well, to hear the verdict, but James seems to be having a hard time deciding what he wants to do. I can't stand his peace – I'm about ready to burst now, out of nerves and overflowing emotion, so how can he simply sit here and expect me to take it? It's maddening! The seconds tick by as he looks to the floor rather than my face, but after I count slowly to about forty five, I lose it.

"Look, James, I know you probably don't have anything left to say to me, but I only want to say that I'm sorry," I burst out, anguished. "I know I'm probably the last person you want to be having a discussion with, but I need you to know that."

Sirius and Peter's expressions are more fitted to having boulders fall on their heads, but I don't let them take the higher hand on me; I keep my eyes on James, who is giving me a very strange look. "Who told you that I didn't want to talk to you?"

"No one, really," I say, faltering slightly. "I just sort of…guessed."

"Well, you 'sort of guessed' quite wrong," he says. "Because, on the contrary, there's a _lot_ we should be talking about, and I was going to come find you soon anyway."

"Really?" My heart skips a beat.

"Yes," he confirms. "I have a few questions and answers for you."

I say nothing to this, and neither do his friends – we all wait for a few more seconds as he comes to a mental consensus for what to do next. "I think we should take a walk," he eventually decides. "And while we walk, you and I can just be honest with each other. How does that sound?"

It sounds like the answer to my prayers, if I'm honest with myself, but I don't let him know this – I pay no heed to Sirius immaturely saying, "Ooooh," as James stands up from the bench, abandons his table, and leads me out to the doors from which he has recently entered from. There's a no-nonsense type distance between us, one that is somewhat intimidating me, but I hold my ground nonetheless as we exit out of the Entrance Hall to the grounds. There's a path here that heads towards the Black Lake, and James begins his way down it, his pace hurried, with me trailing after him like a shy little ghost. Everything about this circumstance feels surreal to me; who would have thought I would be walking with James Potter to the Black Lake to apologize for the last five and a half years and possibly admit that I'm in love with him? If someone had told me I'd be in this moment in even fourth year, they would have been in a lot of pain for sharing their knowledge.

When we get properly on our way, James finally slows down and faces me for the first time in several minutes. His expression is tightly secretive, and his tone is controlled as he says, "Lily, I don't even know where to start."

"I don't either," I confess. "I didn't think you'd even want to be near me after yesterday."

He exhales and runs his fingers through his hair, deliberating his reply. I long to do the same to him and it scares me, but I keep my mouth shut. He then asks, "What's up with you, Lil? You always assume the worst about me – when you and I were cleaning up after you helped me with Potions, too, you thought I hated you or something."

"I think I have a right to," I say.

He raises his eyebrow. "_You_ have a right to think that _I_ hate you?"

"Yes, I do," I say defensively, refusing to be anxious. "You're so cryptic around me now – I never know what you're trying to communicate with me."

James comes to a complete stop when he hears me say this, and takes his nervous hand out of his hair. His eyes close, and he murmurs in a low voice, "You really don't know anything, do you?"

"Obviously not, so can you please just _say_ whatever it is?" I ask. "You said that we were going to be honest, and that's exactly what I expect; tell me everything, without any edits or any cuts."

"There's so much that goes into that everything though," he says, almost to the ground rather than to me, his tone taking on a new shade of anguish I've never heard before.

"So pick a point and go with it until I successfully know what you know," I say, the agony in my voice matching his.

This is so frustrating for him; he exhales to calm himself down and says, "You want the reason why I'm so 'cryptic,' to use your word for it? Well, mainly, it's because you're the cryptic one here – I don't know how to act when I'm around you."

"How can that be?" I inquire, puzzled. "That's how it is for me too."

"You pioneered that game though," he says. "Lily, do you have any idea how difficult it is living with you? One day, you'll be this annoyingly flawless teacher's pet, who's lovely to every single person in the room, and the next, you're this vicious monster, shouting your lungs off at me in the common room over nothing!" As he starts to get into his reasoning, his tempo speeds up into a form of desperate verbal diarrhea that I have to pay close attention to, if I want to catch everything. "If I ever try to have a decent word with you, Lil, you'll either blow me off or refuse to believe whatever I'm saying to you. I can do anything – literally, anything – and you won't even look twice at me. I've tried so hard to ignore you, to convince myself that I'm done with you and everything you've done to me over the years, but whenever I see you, my resolve breaks down, and…and…" His usually light eyes are filled with aged torment as he wildly searches for the right words. "And I wonder why the most worthwhile young woman at Hogwarts has to be the cruelest too."

He might as well have driven a drawer-full of knives into my chest, with the way the sudden ache flooded through my upper body at these words. I pull myself together, however, and manage to say, "Do you know how hard it is to live with _you_, too, James Potter? I'm _nothing_ in concealment when compared to you."

"Oh?" He seems to have been expecting this sort of a response, but is interested to hear my take on it nonetheless. "Do explain your analysis."

"Okay, let's do it this way," I say impatiently. "James, how would you feel if some girl you didn't even know came out of the blue and started to irritate you were already stressed enough, with finding out you were capable of doing magic only a few weeks ago? What would you do if this same girl kept persistently infuriating you while telling all of her friends that she liked you? What would you do if, when this girl discovered the joys of dating, began to incessantly ask you out when all you wanted to do was get through the year alive? How would you feel if this girl condemned you to two years of unwanted, relentless flirtation? You'd be kind of mad, wouldn't you? You'd blow up at her, don't you think? And, after you did that and you weren't sure what the extent of the damage was, what would you say if this girl started to hide from you? Never bothered to even say hello to you anymore? Never clarified what was going on in her head? Suddenly matured and didn't give you the memo? Kissed you while dating your best friend? Got mad at you for something trivial and stupid? What would you do, James? You tell me, what would you do?"

All the aggravation, all the confusion, all the guilt, all the shame – every single emotion I'd ever had for the messy, too-precocious-yet-too-immature black-haired boy standing before me begins to pour out of me with my questions without any kind of control. I keep shouting them at him, hardly even aware of what I'm saying, simply trying to relieve myself of the burden he's put on me – and he's put me through quite a lot, even if I do say so myself. I want him to know what I went through for him; I want him to listen to me, and give me a good explanation as to why I've had to feel this way. I want him to be sorry about it, to console me, to agree that this is all a hideous disarray of fighting that should be forgotten and put behind us. I don't care that I love him anymore; all I care about is that everything is made right again and that I don't have to live in fear of him and his unpredictability anymore. I glare at him – full out glare at him, something I haven't done in months – and I wait for him to say what I want to hear.

I don't have to wait very long for a retort, it turns out. James freezes upon hearing me vent, but the moment I'm finished, his tone is surprisingly loud. "Yes, I've been a bit juvenile over the years, but so have you, Lily! At least I had the sense to take what you said to heart and grow up, unlike you – you've been the same ever since I've known you; this supposedly perfect, suck-up-prone, completely unapproachable girl who simply can't express herself unless it's berating someone during an argument!"

This makes my blood boil more than I can possibly tell him. My hands have curled into fists, my fingernails digging so deeply into my palm that a little bit of blood is drawn, and I holler at him, "You were always this goofy, overly-exuberant _idiot_, James – I couldn't possibly like you before! You, unlike me, couldn't take anything seriously, never could hold down a serious commitment; I want someone who knows what the bloody hell he's after!"

"You're avoiding the question at hand here," he shoots back at me. "I'm making the point that I allowed myself to develop as an individual, while you chose to let Anneliese Weathers make a fool out of you for my sake."

"Oh, let's not even go into the separate issue of Anne," I say scornfully. "You dated her, James, and while you dated her, you kissed me; you cheated on her."

"I didn't cheat on her! _You_ kissed _me_!" he objects. His anger is only lukewarm though; I can sense he's not in the mood to kick up the whole storm for me, but all it does is make me more prepared to fight him. It's always worked that way, and this is no exception.

"I don't believe you!" My nails dig a few inches deeper into the soft flesh of my hand, if it's possible. "You bloody kissed me, as previously stated, and Anne broke up with you; but even then, I went and attempted to comfort you, to make peace with you. Of course, that wasn't worthy of any consideration for you – you never spoke to me after that." There had been a time when I would have said I didn't know why I cared so much that he didn't speak to me, but now is not one of those times; now, I know exactly why I care so much, and I want it to eat as much away from him as it has been eating away from me.

"I didn't know what to say! Lily, my girlfriend broke up with me and the girl I thought I'd loved for years came up and tried to tell me that it wasn't my fault – as you would ask, what would _you_ have done?" Both of us are unraveling too quickly, by this point, and all it is doing is infuriating me further.

"I would have bloody believed that girl!" I shout. "And I would have taken the opportunity to come clean with her rather than continuing to play these _games_ you've been condemning me to!"

"Bullshit!" His eyes are alight with irritation by this point. "It's all bullshit – you wouldn't have gotten closer to me if you'd been in my situation, Lily, and you know it."

"How would you know?" I shriek. "You don't know the first thing about me, James – you think you do, but you don't!"

This hits him hard, for some reason; something restricts in his expression and he stares at me, with me staring right back. But, instead of backing off like I usually do, I miraculously find reserves of strength from somewhere within me – strength I never knew I possessed until now – and I continue to bellow, "You've had this impression of a perfect girl for years, James – your dream girl. You've been searching the world for her, wishing you could have her, and when you couldn't, you gave that wish to a face – me. I've never been that girl; you always pretended I was, and treated me like I was, but I wasn't. Now, you're realizing that, aren't you? You're finding out that I'm a real person, not a one-dimensional thought in the back of your mind, and you hate that. You're trying to make me into what you want, but you know what? I don't want to be your tweaked and refined soul-mate; I am what I am, and I'm not going to change for anyone, including you. And, while I'm at it, you should know that this was another reason why I couldn't like you – I knew that something like this would happen eventually. You would see that there were things about me that you didn't like, things you didn't want to deal with, and I didn't want to be the one to give every bit of my soul to you, only to have you reject it. And now, guess what? We're not even together, and you've already managed to take and break all of me, and I've had enough."

I can't believe that these things are coming out of my mouth with such rapidity – truly, I can't – and I don't even know where they're coming from. What I _do_ know, though, is that they're the truest statements I've ever come out with; every single thing that had been a half-formed sensation in my chest for as long as I can remember has finally been verbalized, and I think that this is the first time James Potter can fully understand what I've been undergoing lately. I can feel tears brimming up in my eyes, but I am careful to hold them in as James's face shifts and he speaks as well, but in a much softer tone than I'd used.

"Well, did you ever think, Lily, that while I might have thought those things when we were younger, I no longer am? Did you ever think that I've loved every single detail about you for longer than you could guess, despite a lot of them being negative? Yeah, maybe I didn't know you as well as I should, but I'm trying to. I haven't been able to make much headway, since you're incapable of letting me do so, but all I've wanted since fourth year was to dig a little deeper every day, learn about you slowly while you did the same with me. I know you're not my perfect dream girl, and I know I'm not your perfect dream boy either, but our differences aren't worth where we are at present." His voice is gentle now, rather than heated like it had been a few minutes back – he and I have always been good at flaring up and flaring down within seconds, but understanding where the other is at in the cycle almost instantly.

I bite my lower lip. "Fourth year was the time you initially began to harass me – how could you have possibly wanted to seriously know me if all you did was flirt with me and fight with me?"

"I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Lily, but you reveal more about yourself when you're mad," says James. "And I was ready to take whatever you gave me at that point – I suppose you could say I was bordering on desperation. You're a hard person to live with and I was new to the idea then; I've told you that before."

"But _why_?" I burst out. "That's the biggest question – _why_ were you desperate for me? _Why_ did you pick me?"

"That's a good question," he remarks. "I suppose it was because you…you just had so much _life_ in you. You loved to laugh, to learn, to take on the world and see what you could make of it. You were funny and stubborn and determined; everything a girl should be. I don't know what it was, but something about you always stuck with me, and I couldn't stop thinking about you. And, despite the fact that I was at constant war with you, you always had a way of making me see myself in an altered light – you didn't know it, but you had this almost scary knack of saying the words that would bring about the most consequence. But, better, you didn't care about what those consequences were – you weren't afraid of me, and I liked that, even if it wasn't very good for me."

"So if you loved me so much, why did you stop talking to me after fifth year?" I want to know, working to move the conversation along though I'm more touched by this description than he could possibly understand. "That was the one thing I simply didn't get – in only one summer, you went from being obsessed with me to barely acknowledging my existence. Why?"

He sighs. "Oh – that."

"Yes, _that_," I say. I'm craving to hear his explanation – I've waited too long to receive this information, and now that I'm managing to get it out of him, I'm going to take full advantage of it.

"Lil, you and I were at such a weird sort of a balance that year," he says, looking slightly aggrieved as the memories of those treacherous months start coming back to him. "And at the very end, you finally obliterated it – your remarks hit way below the belt. I know you didn't mean to, but that was the end result." He sighs, self-annoyance painfully evident, and continues, "All right, this is the part where I talk, and you don't think too hard or judge too deeply – you just listen. Can you do that _one_ favor for me?"

A lungful of air gets caught in the back of my throat; is he seriously going to tell me now? The prospect of it makes me giddy with excitement, but I mask it as successfully as I can as I say in breathless anticipation, "Yes."

Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, James and I had stopped walking and were standing in the middle of the path, too lost in thoughts we'd never verbalized, but now we resume our trip around the lake, James thinking hard about how he wants to phrase his rationalizations. I stay quiet, ensuring that I stay calm, but as I stare at the ground, James begins by saying, "I tried to forget about what you said, convince myself that the incident was like all the other incidents we've had in our history together, but the truth of the matter was that I couldn't. Remus, Sirius, and Peter were really there for me that summer; they got me through a lot of excruciating self-introspection. Remus particularly talked to me about the difference between loving someone and being obsessed with an illusion, and looking back on it, it did kind of help. Since I was safely away from you, at home where your physical presence wasn't distracting me, I eventually came to the conclusion that you've been harboring lately – that you and I weren't right for each other after all. I really, really thought I'd figured it all out when I came back to school this year, Lily; I thought it was going to be okay. I thought I could move on, since you obviously had, and I'd find the right girl, since I was cleared of you."

He pauses briefly here, so I take the risk and look into his face. At the same instant, he looks into mine, and we examine each other for what is about a split second that seems to stretch into hours. His eyes remind me of an erupted volcano starting out on its re-growth – the aftermath of an eruption of sorts lingers, but some delicate progress is in the process of being made. I can't imagine what I look like to him, but I don't dare ask as he forces himself to go on and say, "So we all came back here, and I felt like I had a purpose. I suppose at that time, I did; my purpose was to find a new purpose. Sirius scoured out dates for me – old ex-girlfriends, girls I'd liked previously, that sort of thing – and I dated around for a while. The thing was, though, I couldn't stand them. I dumped every one of them." Here, an undeniable sadness enters his face and voice, but he doesn't make it more evident than he has to as he says, almost wonderingly, "It didn't feel like it during those months, but I suppose I was slightly depressed. Sirius was quick to point out that my appetite was slowly diminishing. My grades didn't crash and burn, but they slipped a little; enough to make Remus worry, anyway. I was quieter than normal – if Peter and I ever chatted, Peter would end up carrying most of the discussion. I spent a lot of time thinking, and it came to the point where girls stopped flirting with me in the corridors. I liked that; I took the opportunity to simply not care about any kind of a social life. I slept late, did most of my work, and took it easy; it was probably good for me."

I bite my lip as we turn a corner and pass under the overhanging branches of various trees; my stride is careful and restricted out of anxiety, but James's is as though he's in a dream. He's loose, finally open with me after waiting years, and I can sense that for him, verbalizing what he's been hiding for ages is setting him free. I don't _need_ to be here to make him feel this way, but I have a feeling that he does want me around. He does carry on after a momentary stop, with less grief this time.

"I thought a lot about the person that I would soon become in those days," he says. "And I realized that I had to sort out my priorities, get a hold on myself – I was nearly sixteen at that point, and adulthood wasn't far away, and still isn't. I'd always been kind of a goofball, and I apprehended that I was in desperate need of some maturing; Remus had been telling me that for ages, but I never took him seriously until then. So, when winter rolled around, I decided that growing up meant I had to be better about not letting little things get me down. I had a lot of fidgety energy in me still, and I had to get rid of it, so I did the only thing I knew how to do – I played Quidditch." The first smile he has worn today comes to his face now, as though in a day and place not in the present. "I played a _lot_ of Quidditch. Every time some issue or another started taking residence in my head, I'd put on my gear and head out to the pitch for a few hours at a time. I know you're not an athlete, Lily, but there's no high like the one you get when you've done some good, hard practice, even if it's freezing and snowy like it was when I was out. It was the high I'd been searching for, and suddenly, everything made sense again. By February, I could start playing Quidditch for real, and I was loads better – I had just needed to _do_ something, rather than mope like I had been. That was comforting to me; I'd just been going through a rough patch, and now I was going to be all right."

We're nearly at what's been going on over the past few weeks, which is what I was getting at in the first place, but I'm astounded nonetheless by what happened before then – had I seriously made so much difference by shouting a few mildly rude things at him when we were fifteen and stupid? Apparently, I had, so I listen as James sighs to himself and skips to the next part of the story.

"So, in the middle of my bouncing-back period, I get this out-of-the-blue date from your friend Anne," he says. "I don't even know what I was thinking when I accepted it – I was more surprised, than anything. But when I thought on it a little more, I realized I should have said no." He halts briefly, but adds, "It's not because I didn't like her or anything; it was just that I thought it would be more favorable for me to remain single. I didn't want a relationship – I was fine figuring things out on my own. Too bad I only figured this out a few hours before the date; otherwise, I might have canceled." We snort in unison. "But I didn't cancel, as you know – I asked my friends for their opinions; Remus said go for it and have a bit of fun, Sirius said it was about time, and Peter agreed with Sirius. I decided that they were right, so I went out with Anne. It astonished me, but I really, really liked her." He smiles, probably picturing Anne's face in his mind. "She's insanely funny, and easy to talk to. Days later, when I kissed her, I couldn't remember enjoying a kiss so much. I didn't expect to like her as much as I did when I left the village that first afternoon."

I grin – I'd known it! They had been so meant-to-be; if only Anne hadn't opened up the window for doubt during the last few days she dated him. Maybe then I wouldn't have had to feel anything, they would have stayed a couple, and James and I could remain friends rather than an awkward balance between friends and a couple. I clear my throat, though, and ask, "So you _did_ like her?"

It's the first thing I've said to him since he started talking, so he's a bit startled to hear my voice, but he answers, "Yes, I did like her – very much. I told Remus about it, and he agreed that she was the best thing for me for the time being. He advised me to go out with her again, and I didn't argue the suggestion. I told Sirius and Peter about it next, and Sirius was thrilled. He advised me to go out with her as well, but Peter had the best idea – he said to arrange a group thing, so that we could introduce ourselves as a couple. I knew she wanted to be a couple, so it sounded like the perfect solution – I asked her if she wanted to join me, the Marauders, and a few other people at Hogsmeade. She said she'd get back to me on it."

I know this part of the narrative, so I groan. "That's when she made me ask you if I could come along."

James gives me a small smile. "Yes, that's right. It amused me, because it was the first time you had truly spoken to me in months – pardon my saying you didn't handle it too well."

"I didn't," I concur. "I wanted to murder Anne; she said she would only go if I came too."

"I guessed as much," he says. "Nothing else would have done it."

I blush, but he ignores me and goes on to say, "So we went on the group date. Nothing much happened, besides you getting a bit drunk, and I had a lot of fun – the most fun I'd had in ages." He grins again – I notice that he's always smiley when talking about Anne and how much he likes her. "We danced for hours – Anne's wickedly talented. I let loose, and I loved it – that was the type of person I'd been before the whole sorting-out-my-priorities stage. Sirius was just happy that _I_ was happy, and Peter and Remus were glad I was getting back to normal. I'd been worrying them, but when I scored a girlfriend and went out, they took it to mean that I was back on track. I thought I was too, to be honest, and I was also glad that talking to _you_ was infinitely easier as well. I'd planned conversations out in my head for weeks in the summer, pondering how I could possibly make things right with you, but after I started dating Anne, it was nearly effortless. That confirmed it for me; I was officially okay. I did my homework, kept myself under control, I hadn't played pranks all year, I didn't flirt – I felt so much older, but in a good way. The right way. I was everything I wasn't at the end of fifth year, but I liked having space to breathe. I got a great girlfriend in the bargain. It couldn't have gotten any better."

He sighs once more. "That's where it got murky, though. It was _too_ wonderful. _Too_ perfect. There was literally nothing wrong – I was floating on air. So why did it feel like something was missing? I was so used to having something go wrong in my life that without some kind of pandemonium, I was tense – it was complicated, but the best way to put it was that I thought I was overdue for some kind of meltdown along the line. And it turned out I was right – a little while after the group thing, after more dates with Anne, we had the Potions dilemma."

I squeeze my eyes shut. "Oh Merlin."

"It wasn't bad to begin with," he says. "I obviously needed help, and I knew you were the only one who was going to be able to give it to me right. In truth, I was a bit nervous about spending alone time with you, despite it only being for class, but I convinced myself that I was over you – I was okay. But I knew that when it came to you, I probably wasn't okay." He pauses, but says in a very carefully controlled tone, "You were a sensitive topic for me, Lily; sometimes I was over you and could talk about you like any other person, but other times, I was inexplicably uneasy around you. I didn't know why. I still wanted to know what exactly about me offended you, but whenever Anne gave me an answer, I found I didn't want to hear it and I'd change the subject. I was always in flux on my feelings for you, as you probably saw, but for every minute I spent thinking about you, I'd use three to kiss Anne and encourage myself that she was my one and only. It wasn't that I was losing interest in her – because I wasn't – but you were on my mind more and more with every passing day, and I didn't like it. I didn't want to think about you, because to me, you represented every kind of insecurity I'd ever had, and I was in the process of moving on – nobody wants their past back then. So, knowing that, you can see why I was apprehensive about working with you."

"So when you forgot to come, was it because you chickened out?" I am unaccountably hurt by the idea, but I do my best to hide it as I stare him down.

"Of course not," he says. "I wouldn't waste your time like that. No, the reason I forgot was because of Quidditch – I told you that whenever something worried me, I practiced on my own outside. I was doing that the Wednesday I was supposed to be doing the essay with you – I thought I was going to be back on time, but evidently, I had been wrong. I felt awful about it, but the damage was done, and I couldn't fix it. I knew you were bound to be angry with me and wouldn't want to speak to me, so I had Anne pass on my messages to you. You have no idea how relieved I was when I burst in at nine o'clock that Friday and you were waiting for me; you were mad, but you were still there. Seeing Anne was a bit of a surprise, but I was ready to work nonetheless. I was there for your Potions service, nothing else.

"So, as you know, we worked quite hard for several hours," he continues. "Anne and I did do some teasing in there, which I could see did not thrill you, but we did eventually understand what we were doing. It was just that being with Anne…she was the greatest thing in my life in the time we went out, and I subconsciously reverted back to my old self when I was around her. She brought out the flirtatious side of me. You could even say I loved her. I couldn't help myself, especially since I was loopy from being outside too long, but it was no excuse; I felt kind of bad about it. That was a big factor in my staying back to help you pack up; I wanted to know if you were cross with me for my behavior. You said you weren't, but I realized that you thought I hated you."

"You know why I thought that," I feel the need to say.

"Yes, I do," he says. "_Now_. But when you implied it, I hadn't known a thing. I couldn't imagine where you got the absurd idea that I hated you. When I went to bed, the few words you'd exchanged with me on the matter were all that were on my mind. I think that was when I first became conscious to the fact that we were in a dangerous game, Lil. You shouldn't have been on my mind that night. I was scared as I went to sleep; I could feel myself falling in love with you all over again. I had promised myself I wouldn't do it – I had thought I was over you – but I was wrong. All the emotions I'd worked so hard to push away were back, full-steam ahead, and it scared me. As I'd done before, I tried to tell myself that this mindset didn't mean anything, that everything was still all right; I got through the night on that placating notion, but I knew something would break down soon. I had a strong gut feeling, you know?"

"I do know," I say darkly.

James swallows, takes a moment to ruffle his hair and collect his thoughts, and then says, "So, you and I had arranged to see each other again after a few days to finish up the essay. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but after Friday, I wasn't sure anymore. I needed the check-over, definitely, but I didn't know how I would handle being in your company again, after my latest revelations. I didn't want to get late like before, so I found you, and I gave you my essay quickly, because I figured we should get done as fast as possible to avoid discomfiture. I purposely kept my thoughts to Anne when I looked at you, and it worked well – that is, until Anne herself walked into the common room." He shakes his head, seeming ashamed. "You remember that she called me a bad kisser, right? Well, I took it kind of personally – it slightly upset me. I wasn't sure why, and I certainly didn't want either of you to know how I felt, so I played it cool until she left. But, the moment she was gone, the silence was so awkward that I wanted to explode. What was I supposed to say to you after such a performance? Thankfully, though, you said something and inspired me to say something as well, after a few minutes. My question to you had been your opinion on my kissing, if I recall correctly. It had been on my mind, but in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have asked you that – it wasn't like you would know the answer. But you know that I'm impulsive; it was on my mind, so I said it. I was actually surprised when you answered – I hadn't expected you to say something. What you said was an even bigger surprise, if it was possible; I was more honest with you there than I had intended. I was frustrated; you were constantly unwinding what little progress I'd been making before without even realizing it; the comment you'd made about never being kissed was too open of an invitation. So, I leaned in. I expected to have you freak out over me, or wriggle away, but you didn't – you just sat there, with me in your face. I didn't even think; I gave in to those age-old desires that had recently begun to make their way to the surface without thinking about what was _right_, what was _rational_. And, the moment you let me kiss you, I knew that no matter what lies I tried to feed myself, I wouldn't regret it."

He closes his eyes at this point, as do I, as we both remember that kiss – instead of letting him speak, now, I take over. "That kiss had to be the screwiest thing that's ever happened to me," I say, almost accusingly. "You scared me, but mostly, I scared myself. All I could think about was Anne the entire time."

"I know," he says. "But I can't say I'm sorry. It was something I had to do; I simply chose the wrong time to do it. But, as you know, you walked off on me. It was kind of like a bruise, those few hours after the kiss – it didn't really register at first, but once I saw the Marauders and Anne again, the truth hit me and it was bloody painful. I will admit that when Anne broke up with me, I suspected it played its own part in her decision, since she had to have known about it, but I didn't want her to confirm it. I took it as a way of her telling me she didn't want to date a cheater; it depressed me to know that she had taken herself away from me because of my stupid mistake without talking to me about it first. It unhinged me for a few days – I had depended on her being the girl to convince me I was doing the right thing by not imposing myself on you, and I no longer had her. But, thanks to my discovery of Quidditch being a satisfactory savior, as well as the constant support from the Marauders, I managed to recover quickly – much faster than I'd anticipated." He grins. "Sirius bought me firewhiskey to celebrate."

I snort – of course, if there's an alcoholic beverage involved, it's almost a guarantee that Sirius has been involved in some way, shape, or form. "Why am I not surprised?"

"You like to drink too, Lil," he reminds me.

"Only after I've been studying for a particularly long time," I say defensively.

He is still grinning at me, so I ask him one, final question – "The last thing I want to know before I let you go is why you freaked out on me the other day in the Great Hall, when Anne pushed me at you. I'd understand being annoyed, James, but not _angry_."

"I had every right to be angry though," he opposes, his smile melted away almost immediately. "I'd figured out the whole game, and I was pissed; I don't like being used."

"What game?" My voice is cautious – I don't know what kind of an answer I'm going to get.

"I got the gist of what you two had been plotting for weeks in those few minutes alone, Lily, and I had no time to plan out my next move – I acted solely on the anger I had upon originally finding out," he says, his tone slightly tired, but mostly aggravated. "Let me give you the presumption I made that day – you convinced Anne to go out with me to test me out, per say. Then Anne broke up with me to leave your path clear when she was satisfied that I still had feelings for you, but you chickened out at the last minute. Am I right?"

"Partially," I confess. "Now _I'm _going to give you a short nutshell of what happened on my end, and you can't think too hard or judge too deeply – just listen. Okay?"

He nods, and I take a preparing breath before saying, "You were wrong about the first part, but right about the second. See, I genuinely thought that you and Anne were going to be a good couple, if one of you made the first move. I thought you two could be a fairytale-couple – absolutely perfect. Anne, obviously, didn't believe me at first and went out with you to show me both how to ask someone out and to get evidence that you were a good match for me. She, like you, hadn't thought she'd fall so in love with you; she wasn't sure what to do. I was the one who told her to go out with you again – I could see that you liked her and that she liked you back. She wouldn't say it, but when you've been best friends with a girl for five years, you kind of get to know her evasive maneuvers a little bit."

He smiles when he hears this, but I let this strengthen me as I go on to say, "You guys started getting pretty serious then. I was fine with that – in fact, I was happy about it. I encouraged Anne to keep up with it; you were the sole exception to her hating-every-guy-she-dates rule. I did whatever I had to do to keep her with you, which included going dancing with you and helping you out with Potions – she's so very good at taking advantage of my assistance. She knew I would do virtually anything she wanted, so she tried to make us become friends. Obviously, it didn't work out so well. I could feel my feelings for you changing subtly every day, and the whole process sped up considerably when I kissed you – I didn't want to talk to Anne about it, though she took every opportunity she could to force me. I was nervous, until somehow, somewhere, I managed to accept that I didn't hate you at all anymore. But even that was difficult for me to stick with – that was why Anne shoved me at you. She wasn't at all mature about it, which I'm sorry about, but you were right when you thought I was going to tell you I had a crush on you. I didn't like the wording – it was too childish and couldn't fit the scope of what I'd been feeling at all – but Anne has never cared about that kind of thing. She said what she had to say, the way you do, and I realized as I stood there, letting you get upset with me, that I liked you after all. And now, thanks to Anne again, I'm here, telling you about it all for some strange, unexplained reason, and hoping you understand what I'm trying so unsuccessfully to say."

We've stopped walking again, at this point, and for the first time, James's eyes are his normal murky and he touches my face. His fingers send a wave of iciness into the cells that he makes contact with. He caresses my cheek, and when he gets to my chin, he tilts it up to better admire my eyes. "I think I get it."

"Do you really?" I don't know why I doubt him, after all he's said, but I need a tad more assurance – I want to hear him say it plainly, without any kind of muddle enveloping it. I've had enough of muddling.

"Of course I do," he says, stroking my hair next.

"Loving is too new for me," I admit. "I don't do it often – in fact, hardly at all."

"It's new to me too," he says. "Just because I've dated, doesn't mean I've felt real love before. For the record, this is the only time I've felt so strongly about a girl."

"Even Anne?" I don't know what possesses me to say it, and I instantly blush, but James laughs softly, not in the least embarrassed.

"I love Anne, but it's not like how I love you," he says, his voice and eyes attractively tender. "You're _Lily_, for Merlin's sake! _Lily Evans_. I've grown up with you, and there's no one I'd trust more. You're so complex and multi-layered, but I _like_ that about you. You mean the world to me – so much that I sometimes forget how little of me you haven't claimed yet. Maybe we haven't gotten along before, but it's okay – I think we still can. We just have to trust each other."

"No," I say, giggling weakly too, feeling dream-like as I hear these words come out of his mouth; I've heard similar ones, but I had always closed my ears to them – now, I'm listening and taking them to heart. "I never trusted you to be able to love me."

He smiles at me – a dazzling one that makes my breath catch in my throat. "So, can you promise me that you will trust me enough to speak to me without any equivocation?"

"My, your vocabulary has increased lately," I tease.

James's smile is mischievous, but sweet as he says, "Someone very smart once told me that I had the vocabulary of a donkey dropped on its head at birth and was in desperate need to expand it."

I bite my lip and stare into his eyes, attempting to decipher what he's thinking. I don't have to wait too long, however, because he inquires, "So, without any of that equivocation, do you still hate me, Lily?"

I wait a long, beautiful minute before saying, "No. Not at all."

"I'm glad to hear it," he says. "Because even when I thought I didn't or you thought I hadn't, I've always loved you. You're everything to me – always have been, always will be."

"Even when I drink too much?"

He laughs. "Yes."

"Even when I stay up all hours to do my homework?"

"Yes."

"Even when I fight with you and insist that I hate you?"

"Yes."

"Even when I fall asleep in your lap and snore like a foghorn?"

A silence. "Yes, but we'll have to see about the snoring part."

I push him playfully, but put my arms around his neck anyway – I never thought I'd see the day when I voluntarily put my hands anywhere on him, but I find that I like the feeling of James's body (or clothing) on my skin. My breathing is quiet as I gaze into his eyes, and he gazes right back into mine, giving me all there is to see for once. The emotion I discover there explains everything – if I'd ever thought he was difficult to read, I think I wasn't looking hard enough. The filmy cover of hazel I see is as murky as ever, but somehow, something has cleared _behind_ it, revealing the true beauty of the nearly-fully-grown teenager in front of me. He may not be perfect – he knows me well enough to know exactly how to annoy the hell out of me and doesn't hesitate to use the knowledge if he needs to – but he's everything I want at the same time. I can see our entire teen-hood flash before my mind's eye, including all the fights and hormonal imbalances we'd suffered from, but I also see the harmony in all those crazy moments. We wouldn't have wanted it to go any other way; we saw each other's true colors on more than one occasion, but we had secretly been okay with them. I'm not a girl anymore, and he's not a boy – we're a man and woman, ready to change and compromise for the other, because we know we can't live without being together. We've wasted enough time being apart; the silly games, broken promises, and childish obstacles are behind us now, and we can look forward to our futures – together. As James had said, adulthood isn't far away, but there's no one I'd rather share mine more with than him.

"You know what I've noticed?" I eventually ask him shyly, slightly relocating my hands to play with his shirt collar. "I've said practically everything to you except that I've recently fallen madly in love with you." Saying this to his face is more satisfying than I can intelligently express, and extraordinarily, I, beyond doubt, believe the words coming out of my mouth – a startling change for me.

His smile is gentle as he pries my fingers away from his person and holds them against his chest for a moment before letting them fall to my sides. The gesture is simple, but astonishingly intimate all the same. "I've noticed that too," he says.

"So, that being said, I'd like to take this opportunity to say the most agonizing words I've ever had to say before today," I announce, looking him in the eye to give myself the strength I know I'm going to need. "I love you, James Potter, and I'm sorry – for everything that I did before and everything I'm going to do later."

That smile of his widens upon hearing this, but there's still a compassion to it that takes a piece of heart away anyway. "I like hearing those agonizing words," he says, teasingly but meaningfully at the same time. "I've been waiting for them."

"So where does this leave us?" I want to know, dragging the front tip of my shoe across the path we've stopped walking on as I continue to look at his face.

"How about here?" James cups my face in his hands, marveling at my nose for a couple of seconds, and leans down slightly to kiss me. He starts at my hairline, but makes his way around to my eyebrows, my nose, my cheeks, my chin. When he gets to my lips, he takes care to trace the shape of them with the pad of his index finger, enjoying touching me almost as much as I enjoy being touched, before grazing his mouth oh so softly across mine. All throughout, I've got chills going up and down my spine, with cooled goosebumps forming the trail James had taken; it's the single most awe-inspiring and terrifying feeling in the world. I let him keep it up for a couple of seconds, but then I surprise both of us by hungrily turning our kiss into something that better resembles a real snog. I want him, and I'm no longer afraid of claiming him – all of him. Taking a moment to register this, he pulls me in so that I'm up against his chest, one of his hands plastered to the small of my back with the other pushing down on the back of my head, fingers knotting into my hair; he kisses deeply, and the motion of his lips is lustful and quite mature for his age, but I can still recognize the essence of a lovesick teenager as well – it's almost like one of those too-perfect movie kisses, except for the fact that it's real. The frantic pounding of my heart, the heat of our disjointed breathing, the tight way with which we're clutching each other – they sharpen my senses in ways I hadn't thought possible, and I am hit with sudden desires I never thought I'd receive any time soon. I know that'll all regulate with time as we learn how to touch and how to kiss, but for the time being, all I need is the roughness of a sweetly flawed first-exploration – dirty thoughts and all.

Though my inexperienced brain is telling me I'm too close to him, the rest of me feels completely natural, as if I was born to fit into the shape of his body – like tree branches entwining in the wind or birds wings brushing as they fly by each other. I can feel him – in me and around me – and my highly dazed brain finally understands the theme both Anne and James have been trying to explain to me for so long; that no matter what I do or where I go in life, James Potter, the boy I could never tolerate or value, is always going to be there, at my side, ready to brave all of it out with me.

And, as he moans softly into my lips, the nearly inaudible sound dripping with an astonishing amount of pent-up desire, I know that everybody had been right-on from the very start – my soul has always belonged to him, and expressing it is no longer a choice, but an obligation. Why? Because we're not like the fickle couples that are being made and broken at this very moment; we are the _real_ fairytale, the one everybody dreams about whether or not they admit to it. Right in the middle of our semi-ordinary lives, something extraordinary – stronger than all logic – came and blessed us by giving us the other. Maybe it wasn't as clear-cut as the storybooks make it out to be, but who wants a nippy, clean affair when they can have something sweeter, deeper than what meets the eye? At this moment in time, at the end of one story and the start of another, I am modern-day Cinderella, and I have my modern-day Prince kissing me like there's no tomorrow – there's nothing more meant-to-be than we are.

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**A/N: Review button's down there and the next chapter shall be up shortly!!**


	16. Of My Prince Charming, James Potter

**A/N: Yes, this is it – the last chapter of this story! It's kind of sad to see it go, I must admit, but I have a pile of other stories I intend on writing as well; it's time to move on. So, basically, now all you've got to do is read this fluffy little thing, find a way to enjoy it, and review for the last time!!

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"LILY! Goddamn it, you're asleep _again_! What _is _it with you?"

"Anne, come on – that's not nice. Be gentler; maybe she'd respond if you spoke to her without cursing at her."

"Trust me, James, this is the only way to wake this girl up. She could sleep through a round of Cruciatus cursing."

I feel a poke on my arm, but it's not the normal rough kind that Anne loves to give me, which leads me to conclude that James has taken over Anne's usual job. And, when I feel a pair of temperate, perfect lips find mine, my guess is confirmed – I open my eyes slowly when they pull away and smile at the sight of his welcome face. "Good evening, Mr. Potter," I say pleasantly, even if drowsily.

I hear Anne say, "Finally!" in the background, but I ignore her and instead concentrate on James's grin and his voice saying, "You're up."

"Now." I laugh weakly and permit him to prop me up on my chair a little bit more; Anne, James, and I are sitting around a table in the Gryffindor common room, a table which has all sorts of papers, quills, and ink pots scattered across it. The clock informs me that it is two AM on Monday morning – in a few hours, we have a Potions exam and a Transfiguration exam. So, of course, I'm not sleeping and getting the slumber I should rightfully be engaging in; I am fighting to stay awake to do my job, which is helping Anne study. This time, though, James has joined us, because he is, in all honesty, as doomed as Anne is; but, on the plus side, his methods of handling me are much more satisfactory than Anne's are – something I'm not used to, but can easily adapt to.

"Will you please just stay awake now, then?" Anne requests irately, checking the clock along with me and tapping her quill on her parchment. "I have another question."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I say highly unapologetically. "What is your question?"

"Have I done the Draught of Peace right here?" She shows me the sheet she's working on. "I don't know if I have or not."

"Oh, Annie, you and I have already gone over all this," I wail. "I thought you knew this!"

"I do, but I want to make sure," she insists.

James snickers while I groan and look at her work. She has made several errors – errors that would have proved very dire if she had to physically perform what she's written – and I point them out to her. "Annie, this is pitiful," I complain.

"Well, excuse me for not being perfect," she snipes.

"Even _James_ got it right," I tell her.

"Gee, thanks, Lil," James says, pretending to be offended.

"I'm sorry, my love, but you're hopeless with Potions," I say. "If you can get it right, I certainly should hope Anne can."

James pouts anyway, but I turn back to Anne, agonized. "If you can't remember that you need frog's legs versus grasshopper's legs, you are going to fail. That's the fact of the matter."

"It's not my fault," she protests. "This is hard work!"

"We're all doing it – you might as well do it right," I say curtly, stretching my arms and yawning. "Now please; correct yourself here and show me when you're done."

"You're working me much harder than you're working James," she accuses.

"You need more help," I say honestly. "He's rather good at his work. Surprisingly."

James blanches across from me. "How is it _surprising_? I've been two or three places behind you in marks for years!"

I smile tiredly. "I'm sorry," I say for the fourth time tonight already, but only meaning it for the first time. "I get nasty when I'm tired. Forgive me?"

"Oh, but you don't apologize to _me_, your best friend?" Anne asks crankily. "This is _great_, Lily, just _great_. I finally know where I stand in your book."

"Annie," I whine. "You're the reason I'm down here. I'm kind of mad at you."

Anne shoots me a filthy look, but she sees the truth in my words, so she says nothing more as she corrects her Draught of Peace draft. I yawn once more and James watches me.

"You look bloody awful," he says blatantly.

"I _feel_ bloody awful," I say. "Do you have any questions for me too?"

"No, not really," he says. "I think I'm good for tonight – but can you test me on this quickly, just to be sure?" He hands me a list of spell information for Transfiguration.

"Of course." I accept the parchment from his hands and ask him a few questions on each thing he has listed. I make sure to vary the styles each time, attempting to challenge him, but he goes through them flawlessly – so flawlessly that I remember why I used to be secretly jealous of him in second year. When he's finished rattling off the complexities of Switching Spells, I glower at him and inform him of my feelings, only to have him laugh at me.

"Transfiguration just makes _sense_ to me," he says. "The spells and concepts are like circles – all starting from the same point and branching out. If you get the middle, starting point, then you get everything. Potions don't make any sense to me at all because it has so many different methods – it's more organic, looser. It just depends on your learning techniques, you know?"

"I hate both," Anne chimes in.

"You hate learning in general," I point out. "You wouldn't care what subject it was – you'd hate it either way because it involved work."

"True," she comments. "Very true." She dots an 'i' on her page with a flourish and hands me her own sheet. "Make sure this is right, would you, doll?"

I sigh and scan over the page. "It looks fine to me."

"Good." Anne cackles as she puts away her materials. "I'm done!"

"Hallelujah," I mutter. Anne shoots me a look, but James chuckles as he follows suit and packs up. None of my things had been out to begin with, so I simply observe as they sling their bags over their shoulders and make their way up to the dormitory stairs. I run my fingers through my hair, attempting to convince myself to get up and go to bed – I've slept on the chairs before, and they're not as uncomfortable as they look – but James takes notice; he drops his bag on the ground where he's standing and comes back to where I'm sitting. I look at him with hardly-focused eyes, and he smiles.

"C'mon," he says. Then he holds his hand out to me – it's an almost irresistible temptation. I let him entwine his fingers with mine and smoothly pull up all my weight without even changing his expression. Staggering as I come to my feet, I allow him to support me with an arm around my waist and walk me to the stairs, where Anne is intolerantly hanging around.

"You're so slow at night," she grouches.

I yawn once more. "I love you too, Annie."

"She works hard," James says on my defense. "She should be allowed to wind down _some_ time, don't you think?"

"I'm always bitchy at night," she notifies him. "Lily's slow and I'm horrible – you get used to it."

He looks as though he'd rather not, but James nods all the same. "Okay, Anne."

She nods, exhausted herself, and asks me, "You coming then, Lils?"

"Should be," I say. "Get in bed – I'll be right up."

"'Kay," she says, not in the mood to argue. "'Night."

She waves almost drunkenly and leaves me at the foot of the staircase. I stifle my next yawn and say, "I'll see you in the morning, then," as I give James a last hug. However, as I make my way up the first step, he catches my arm, a slightly mischievous look on his face. I turn to look at him. "Yes?"

"Maybe you won't have to only see me in the morning," he says slowly.

"Why?" I want to know, alarmed.

His eyes light up. "How about you spend the night with me in my dormitory?"

I can feel my own eyes widen. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," he says. "I want you with me."

Too tired and in-love to argue, I say, "All right, but are you sure I'm allowed to?"

He waves a nonchalant hand. "Nobody will care. I can promise you that one."

"Okay," I say, suddenly much more awake than I had been even moments before. "Let's go!"

He laughs. "I knew you'd see it my way."

Hand in hand, we dash up the stairs and we take the turn I'm not familiar with to the opposite dormitory. James opens the door carefully, making sure not to make very much noise, and we tip-toe in. The room is shadowy, so I have little chance to explore, and my eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim setting. I don't know the shape of the room or where James's bed is, but he obviously does – expertly avoiding any potential noise-makers on the floor, he guides me to his four-poster and takes the bedcover off to reveal the blanket. Grinning at me in the darkness, he bounces onto his mattress and settles down under the covers – with a similar grin, I join him, and our breaths mingle as we snuggle in together, looking for the other's arms. When James finds me, he pulls my body into his, clutching me as though I'm his source of all life, and I allow him to, far too content in his grip. My head rests in the hollow between his head and shoulder, my hair fanning out every which way, but he doesn't seem to care – he takes a few adjusting breaths and says, "I like this."

"I do too," I admit, looking up at his face. "Your bed is much warmer than mine."

I get another grin. "Really?"

"Yes," I confirm. "It's bigger too…and you're in it."

His grin widens. "Maybe tomorrow we'll test it out and see which dormitory is better."

"Maybe." I yawn but continue to stare avidly at him. "But for now, here is where I want to be."

He nods. "Same goes for me."

We are silent then, calming down and getting comfortable for a few seconds, and James is satisfied with stroking my cheek. I'm holding his hand in both of mine, playing with his fingers and such; we're happy. The night outside isn't completely still – sounds of nocturnal animals fooling around are still audible – but inside the castle, the only things I can hear are the choruses of snoring around me. My eyes seek out his hazel ones, and he tilts his face down to mine – we are about to kiss when he stops himself, his nose touching mine, but our lips a few centimeters apart.

"It's times like these when I wonder why we wasted so much time trying to hate each other," he says, almost conversationally. "I don't know how I lived so long without doing this."

"Pride, I suppose," I answer sadly. "I was always too proud to say I cared once I had decided I didn't – it was embarrassing, and I didn't know what would become of me if I told you."

"I wonder if things would have been different if we'd starting going out in fourth year," he speculates.

"Of course they would have," I say. "I wish I'd gone along with you, in retrospectively; we could've had ages." There's harsh regret in my tone – I truly hate myself for depriving me of him all these years.

He catches on to it. "It's not a bad thing that you didn't," he says. "We were silly back then; we would have overwhelmed each other. We're old enough to handle it now."

"I…" I bite my lip and exhale as I continue to look at him. "I don't know, James. I'd always been afraid of relationships because I'd seen what happened with Anne – she would like someone, one of them would end it, they'd both be upset, and then they'd kind of move on. But I realized that your past loves never leave you, and you carry the broken shards of you around and give them to the next person, who will most likely break them again; I didn't want to think about such an existence. That was mostly why I stayed away from any kind of commitment – I wanted to stay whole for the person I was meant for."

"This is where you're going to have to trust me, Lily," he says gently, his fingers in my hair now. "I see where you're going with that, but sometimes, you've got to take the chance, you know? Maybe you have to fall apart to rebuild yourself. Maybe you have to accept that I can't really live without you."

I smile wryly. "I think I _am_ going to trust you on that one, because I need you too. I trust you, you goof."

He smiles. "Merlin, you have no idea how much I love hearing you say that."

"What, that I trust you?" I giggle. "I'll say it however many times you want me to."

"Even a million wouldn't be enough." He lightly brushes his lips against mine, sending pleasurably chilled shivers down my spine. "I love you."

Three simple words – that's what they are, and they make me feel so warm and tingly that I feel as though I'm about to explode. I don't, however; instead, I say, "I love you too."

His mouth lingers just above the corner of my own, and he waits. I don't know for what, but I can't take it – I kiss him. I kiss him slow and deep, savoring the taste of him and committing it to memory; I meet no resistance on his side, which helps considerably. He picks me up and places me on his front, his hands on the small of my back. We keep kissing until I get dizzy from air-deprivation and am forced to pull away to stay alive. Breathless, we look at each other, and I see a reverence in his face that makes me want to cry and wonder how the hell I got so lucky.

He tucks my hair behind my ear and says softly, "You're beautiful, Lily."

I chew on my lip as I always do when I'm practically lost for words. But then they come to me – the words that explain what he's been changing in me for the past few days that we've been inseparable. "I'm only beautiful because you _make_ me beautiful," I tell him.

His eyes are alight and dazzling with affection, but we don't snog again – he kisses me delicately, but briefly, and then lets me rest my cheek on his chest. I tangle my legs up in his and his arms become my covers while his body becomes my mattress as we start to drift off to sleep together. Something hot has melted in my abdomen area, making me pleasantly lukewarm and lethargic, and I know that tonight, I'm going to get the best sleep I've ever had. At this moment, I am a princess in her royal bedchamber, and I don't need anybody besides my prince.

Maybe I hadn't believed in happily-ever-after when I turned thirteen, but now I know that they do indeed exist – whether I'd previously been the Fairy Godmother or even the leftover Stepsister in the story is no longer relevant, because my happy ending came for me anyway and transformed me into the heroine I'd always wished I could be. I smile to myself as I realize that so long as James Potter stays with me, I'm going to wake up every single day and be gorgeous, radiant Cinderella for the rest of my life.

That feeling is, to me, what truly defines a real fairytale.

* * *

**A/N: I completely amazed myself with my mushy capabilities in this chapter here – I think I need to tell you that. xD But, that's what happens when you watch 27 Dresses the night before you write the final cutesy chapter for a story like this one (it was adorable, by the way – I'm a sucker for chick flicks) so I suppose you're just going to have to accept it. :) However, I'm quite flattered that you finished this whole story, and I do hope you enjoyed it!! Feel free to review and check out any of my other stories if this one was to your satisfaction. :D Thanks so much!**

**Much love,  
****Zay  
**


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